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Boeing Drops Wireless System For 787
K7DAN writes "It appears that state-of-the-art connectivity in Boeing's newest aircraft means a wired, not a wireless network. The Seattle Times reports that Boeing has abandoned plans to bring entertainment and information to passengers through a wireless system in its 787 Dreamliner due to possible production delays and potential conflicts with other radio services around the world. A side benefit is an actual reduction in weight using the wired system. Amazingly, the LAN cables needed to connect every seat in the aircraft weigh 150 lbs less than all the wireless antennae, access points, and thickened ceiling panels required to accommodate a wireless network (the design called for an access point above each row)." The article concludes: "The net impact, [a Boeing spokesman] said, is less technical risk, some weight saved, the system's flexibility and quality preserved plus 'a bit of schedule relief.'"
Wired seem to be a better solution for a plane anyhow, I wouldn't expect the need for moving around the plane with your laptop to be that massive, I mean people are usually pretty tied to their seats when going with a Boeing.
The problem probably is that different airline companies want different seating positions, but the article says that they should have solved this issue.
The article says nothing about how the LAN on the plane connects to the internet though. I think that is where the state of the art comes in, the only possible solution I see is through satellite connection, but with a moving plane I imagine that is going to give some problems.
Another problem in this is the bandwidth given by a satellite connection, if there are 20 passengers surfing the net that isn't going to give a lot of bandwidth pr. user.
Considering every commercial airline's effort to offer WiFi to date has been scrapped either before takeoff (pun intended), or not long after launch. The costs are simply not supported by the revenue, simple as that. Other considerations like weight and maintenance complexity are secondary.
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They would need to have cables running throughout the plane anyway to all the wireless antenna. Just put a hub in place of an antenna and run a few more cables to the seats. With all the shielding and such that a plane has, you'd probably need a boatload of antennas...Then you have to worry about extra shielding for all the onboard components, etc.
Besides, all this means is that the business traveler will have to carry around a 2 ft CAT 5 cable...big deal. I bet some creative laptop maker comes up with one of those airline power adapters that also integrates a CAT 5 cable in to it. Just plug the one end in to the back of your laptop, and plug in the power and network cables in to the appropriate ports on the other end.
...if you're not moving around much, use a light little ethernet cable and save yourself all the hassle of wireless. It trumps wireless in speed, reliability and cost.
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how this makes sense for laptops as it shouldn't matter laptops generally have both, and there is no need to be mobile on a plane, but what about WiFi PDA's and the upcoming cell phones with wifi capabilities, both of those could be pretty important to an exec who needs to remain connected.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
"Amazingly, the LAN cables needed to connect every seat in the aircraft weigh 150 lbs less than all the wireless antennae, access points, and thickened ceiling panels required to accommodate a wireless network (the design called for an access point above each row)."
So, obviously, they didn't spec this out with commodity hardware -- I'm guessing that and the extra shielding were to mitigate any radio interference that might mess with the avionics. But come on.. there has to be a wireless solution that uses less physical hardware than this.
- 'Drew
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -- Voltaire
You could probably just warfly some wireless connection from the ground if you really needed wireless in a plane, right?
How important is saving 150 pounds on a plane that weighs between 360k and 540k pounds on takeoff?
It may seem small in comparison, but it's 150lbs less you have to pay fuel for, for the entire service life of the plane. While this probably wouldn't be a huge chunk of profits gone, why waste money? After a while the fuel needed to ship that extra 150lbs certainly adds up. I wouldn't want to pay for it!
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..is allow you to take your laptop on the flight.
Blerg.
Quick, call Boeing! They probably didn't even consider that! They'll love to hear the your expert opinion! Or: Ask yourself who'll know best. You or them.
There's... someone on the wing! Some... thing! And it's... trying to... leech wifi! </shatner>
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... it was going to be too hard to implement the system. Imagine this cockpit conversation:
"Denver, AA325 - Requesting clearance to LAN - over"
"Negative, AA325 - do not land - over."
"No, not land, LAN - over"
"Landover? No - this is Denver - over."
"Roger, Denver..."
"Sorry, Clarence, no clearance."
etc...
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I would guess it was so they could use low-power APs. Probably easier to get FAA approval for something running in the bluetooth power range rather than a typical AP.
The challenge I see with wired Ethernet is the connectors. Is a standard cat 5 jack designed for multiple plug insertions and removals every day? How often would the jacks need to be replaced and can this be done easily?
The article is not about internet access at all but distribution of inflight movies and entertainment. And there is not an access point at every row, but an antenna at every row (in the old scheme). If you read it, that's a receiving antenna that would then distribute the content to the seats in that row, not a transmitting antenna (access point).
Also, this plane is already several thousand pounds over the design weight, so I imagine that has something to do with this decision.
Obviously you don't know much about how wireless works. See, while 3 AP's may provide the proper *coverage* (ie: you can get a signal anywhere in the plane), it can't provide the *bandwidth*. Assuming they're using this for more than just some person's want to get online from the air, such as for in-flight entertainment (think screens at each seat) and possibly a VoIP phone-type setup to consolidate cabling (no seperate phone/video cables for each seat), it likely will use quite a bit of bandwidth. If each row has some 7-8+ seats (twin aisle configuration, likely it's 2/3/2 or 3/3/3), and designing for peak capacity (i'm sorry you can't watch your in-flight movie because your rowmates are all watching it already and those guys are online and that guy is on the phone), it's going to take a lot of bandwidth. Even at 802.11g/a speeds, you're talking at most 108Mbps (twin radio configuration) split across 7-8 people. Figure watching a movie uses 3-10Mbps, that's at nearly peak capacity right there, best case scenario.
I hate sigs...
With wired they can sell premium seats with LAN, or cheaper seats without LAN. That would be harder to control with wireless.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
But also has massive latency.
Worst case, you can easily throttle bandwidth to a particular row or seat to keep one user from sucking up too much.
What will be interesting is if first class passengers get more bandwidth than cattle class.
paintball
I didn't say that it's a 108Mbps standard, I said that with twin broadcasting radios (business class AP's), there would be a theoretical 108Mbps available from that *AP*. Yes, for a single radio on board an AP, there would only be 54Mbps available.
I hate sigs...
With 100Mbps ethernet connections at every seat, I wonder if they could sponser some killer LAN parties. Maybe show the current best players on the main screen? : )
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paintball
Considering every commercial airline's effort to offer WiFi to date has been scrapped either before takeoff (pun intended), or not long after launch. The costs are simply not supported by the revenue, simple as that. Other considerations like weight and maintenance complexity are secondary.
The costs for an ADD-ON system are not supported by the revenue. Putting a wireless system on an EXISTING plane means you have to:
- Take the plane out of service
- Partially disassemble the plane
- Run supplemental wiring
- Install new access points and new compartments to hold them
- Bolt-on trasmit/receive device
- Reassemble plane
The costs of a system BUILT INTO the plane when it is FIRST CONSTRUCTED would be MUCH, MUCH lower. You just run your network wires at the same time you run all the other wiring for the plane. And you don't have to REPLACE receptacles etc with new ones, you just install the ones with ethernet jacks to begin with.
And, in this case, they're installing a wired network, not a wireless one. So even cheaper still.
paintball
if they use power over ethernet then they can make the in-seat entertainment system a thin client and use at least *some* off-the-shelf hardware (remember that aircraft electronics, even in entertainment, have to withstands many years of use, far longer than any consumer electronics have to).
it also means they could use SIP phones for providing in-flight telephony and put them on their own vlans, likewise have vlans for security cameras and remote controlled devices.