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Boeing Scraps In-flight Internet Access
Dreamwalkerofyore writes "According to the BBC, Boeing has recently announced that it has abandoned Connexion, its in-flight broadband service. Said Boeing CEO Jim McNerney: 'Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected. We believe this decision best balances the long-term interests of all parties with a stake in Connexion by Boeing.'"
I'm not sure if the reason isn't because of security issues. Which public airline wants their passengers to use notebooks during the flight in the times of exploding battery packs and terrorist attacks. Now as there is no mainstream market their Connexion system they abandon it because it's too expensive to carry on just for a small market of private airline carriers.
Yep. Take a look at the case of Mark Bingham, who was GAY and called his mother using his last name. Various internet theories have circulated that calling by his last name was "his thing," which contradicts interviews with his mother showing her incredulity at the incident. Even if a gay boy had done such a thing, it doesn't explain why he repeated himself or why he ignored questions about the hijacking taking place in his presence.
And for a few hour flight, yeah, it does add up a bit. But when I fly from Melbourne to Glasgow, 9 hours to Hong Kong, 13 hours to London, and 90 minutes to Glasgow, it ends up costing about a dollar an hour.
The self-professed liberal radio commentator Ed Schultz is a pilot. He says he uses his cell phone while flying all the time and the guy who is spreading the rumor that they don't work on planes as part of a conspiracy theory is an idiot.
A more intelligent thing to do would be to add 5$ surcharge per ticket on business/first class tickets and then propose FREE UNLIMITED BROADBAND CONNECTION on flights. They're paying shitloads of money for those tickets anyway, so the surcharge would pass unnoticed, allowing the company to one-up other airlines in terms of service :)
Oh yeah, I forgot 4- Profit !!
Actually, I've been doing that for over a decade.
I used to oversee nationial rollouts of systems, which meant I was on the road 95% of the time, often spending only a day or two in each site before moving on. I had enough to worry about without babysitting a suitcase which may or may not arrive on my flight, but was on the road long enough and in different enough climates every week that a roll-on wasn't sufficient.
Enter FedEx.
Every few weeks I'd pack up a load of freshly cleaned/laundered clothes and send them to my major destinations over the next month. Coats & thick socks to cold places, extra shirts & undershirts to hot ones, replacement underwear, etc. I'd put each cache in a cheap collapsable nylon duffel, then into the office for shipping to jobsites with strict instructions to hold for my arrival (there were usually a couple of other boxes full of gear)
Sure I had to pop by a store every so often, but at least I wasn't inconveniently buying a couple of new dress shirts at top dollar every week, and these were already laundered, pressed, etc. Plus when you're from out of town finding a store that sells decent dress shirts or whatever, getting to it, etc. is just another hassle one can do without. My concerns were the job, finding my way back to tonight's hotel, getting fed decently, and getting to the airport; not haberdashery.
Even if I'm paying I still often ship clothes ahead. It is a small expense compared to much of the trip, and frankly skipping the joy of dragging the suitcase to the airport, then the thrill of the lugguage carrousel at the other end (wheel... of... mangled... lugguage! Did mine arrive today or is it on it's way to Guam? Let's wait an hour surrounded by annoying people to find out!), makes it worth every penny. Check in to my hotel, have them send the box to my room, ahh, properly packed clothes, nothing crushed, all ready for wearing during my stay.
Seriously, career advice? Show up every day looking neat & fresh when everyone else is rumpled and worn. Especially true with suits, they can only be worn so many days in a row before getting nasty, no matter how often they're sent out for overnight abuse at outragous rates by the hotel dryclean service. Shipping costs are just a sound investment then.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
And it is a scientifically proven FACT that GAY people do not use their LAST NAME!
Now back to reality: The stress of being in a hostage situation might make people act a wee-bit differently, and one person who thinks "it was not my son" doesn't explain the other 15 or so people who *did* hear from their loved ones. 14 out of 15 witnesses would be enough do get you convicted of most crimes, especially when the 15th is unsure more than they have any proof. The government could not possibly pull off a stunt of this magnitude without someone leaking the story to the New York Times. You can't even cover up a minor robbery (Watergate).
But go ahead, go watch Loose Change 45 more times and make yourself feel better. Don't forget to use generic brand aluminum foil for your tinfoil hat, as the major brands have alread been corrupted by the government and now contain nano-circuits to boost the government radio signals.
The people who spout off on Slashdot about how it's impossible have clearly never tried it. I can empirically tell you that GSM phones work at even 10-15 thousand feet of altitude, having done so myself on a private jet flight where there is nobody to enforce the absurd restrictions on commercial flights. They don't work *well*, but it is possible to get through a quick voice call for a minute or so, or to get data access for long enough for your Treo or Blackberry to suck down chunks of email here and there.
However, at cruising altitude for private jet flights, usually in the 33-35k feet range (private jets tend to cruise at higher altitudes than commercial flights), GSM service is not so good. I don't recall off the top of my head successfully getting through any calls or meaningful amounts of data at that altitude, though you *will* sometimes still see evidence of your phone picking up a GSM cell site from the ground, so there's at least some one way transmission. Doesn't mean it's impossible, of course, just means that I don't recall doing it.
I've also only been lucky enough to fly on a private jet a small handful of times, not something I do on a regular enough basis to have thought about doing extensive experimentation.
New Air Canada seats have a TV and USB port in the back. They haven't "implemented" use of the USB ports yet, but I suspect they will be for keyboards with trackballs, for Internet/email access.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.