American Airlines Expands Streaming In-Flight Movies

wolog writes "American began testing a wifi in-flight entertainment system last month on two wide-body jets and will expand the testing among customers this summer. If all goes well, American said, it will be the first domestic (US) airline to provide streaming service on all Wi-Fi-enabled planes, starting this fall. Of course, the airline industry offers in-flight entertainment not solely to keep passengers amused but also to generate revenue. I'm curious how such system works. Having 250+ wifi clients connected inside a long metallic cylinder and doing some video streaming seems a really big challenge."

Comments

Interesting!

[DWMorse]

And here I was always told that cell phones, laptop computers and personal electronics would crash the plane, if used in JUST the wrong, mysterious manner.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/30/

Re:Interesting!

[metalmaster]

Nowadays laptops come with a few different radios onboard. Theres nothing stopping a clever person from adding their own radio or maybe adding jamming functionality. In this highly unlikely scenario communications and possibly more important functions can be disrupted.

Re:Interesting!

[purpledinoz]

I once was asked to take off my head phones that wasn't connected to anything. I agree the airline regulation is overly cautious. But it's a lot easier telling the passengers to turn off everything rather than telling them to turn off any device that emits a radio signal. I can also understand why a flight attendant might get pissed, because she probably already told a hundred other people the same thing already that day.

Re:Interesting!

[ewanm89]

Your neurons technically emit an EM signal, so I guess we should turn our brains off too.

It's like using a mobile phone in the petrol/gas station, there is just as much energy most of the time in the friction of the fuel moving down the pipes, that the EM from phone. And sparks off the battery, well, unless you are disassembling your phone at the petrol station with it turned on. Hospitals are validly different, they have rooms with extremely EM sensitive equipment, like nmr/MRI scanners.

No, it's all because they don't want to test every possible device to add them to the insurance.

Re:Interesting!

[Firehed]

I've been asked the same. It's not because of signal interference (despite what they will claim), but because the flight attendants want to be able to easily get your attention during takeoff and landing if it becomes necessary. Of course the noise canceling drowns out engines wonderfully while it tends to allow speech through quite well so it probably would have *helped* them get my attention, but they have no way of knowing that.

Re:Interesting!

[Firehed]

There's really never been any problem. I need to do business flights many times a year and I usually fly with Emirates (United Arab Airlines). The first class private suites are truly awesome and come with your own minibar, adjustable ambient lighting, big tv and lots of movies and a la carte menu. Drinks are free too and theres showers and spa. I have no idea why anyone would fly with American Airlines when you can have service like that.

Not everyone can get away with expensing an $19,000+ flight. Hell, the one time I flew first (it was the only opening available) at "only" ~5x the standard coach rate... yes, it was nice, but certainly not nice enough to justify the increase in price. 2-2.5x, maybe, but for the rest of the world without insane expense accounts, we'll just buy a new car instead.

Yes, it's actually that much for a JFK-Dubai roundtrip (for the random days I picked in late June).

Re:Interesting!

[causality]

I've been asked the same. It's not because of signal interference (despite what they will claim)

I agree and I note that the simple, well-understood term for this sort of behavior is: deception. I am rightly suspicious of people who use deception not as a last resort in a time of desperation, but as their very first preferred tactic. What would be so wrong with them saying, "takeoff and landing are the two most critical moments of the flight so we require as a condition of using our service that no one use devices known to cause distraction such as cellphones and headphones at these times". Without even trying it they immediately reject reason and honesty and use fear (of the plane crashing) as a tool of manipulation. Why do we tolerate that from people who are supposed to be serving us?

Well that's actually a rhetorical question. I know the answer. It's because getting to the intended destination is much more important to us than taking a stand and refusing to do business with anyone who treats us this way. It's also because this has become so common and usual that I don't think many people appreciate the dehumanization it really represents. What would they use as a basis of comparison?

but because the flight attendants want to be able to easily get your attention during takeoff and landing if it becomes necessary. Of course the noise canceling drowns out engines wonderfully while it tends to allow speech through quite well so it probably would have *helped* them get my attention, but they have no way of knowing that.

What's wrong with an alarm (or alert) system then? Something unmistakeable and unambiguous for use only in a genuine emergency, like bright red lights and a very loud (100-110dB) PA system so that any emergency announcement will definitely be heard over engine noise, movies, passenger chatter, and the like. Then if they really have a genuine need to quickly get the attention of everyone at once, they can do it. This doesn't suffer from the weakness of counting on every single individual to conform to bureaucratic rules with flimsy justifications. It has the added strength of not requiring flight attendants to be headphone nazis who deceptively micromanage their paying customers.

It's like we just insist on doing everything the hard way.

Re:Interesting!

[ColdWetDog]

Your neurons technically emit an EM signal, so I guess we should turn our brains off too.

Shouldn't be hard for most people. From what I've seen, the average passenger has a built in "Airplane" mode that shuts higher functioning down as soon as they get across the jetway.

Re:Interesting!

[artor3]

If you're through feeling indignant, let me tell you that they are not deceiving you. The concern really is that the electrical interference could mess with the avionics. The IEEE has done studies in the past showing that it's possible. It is extremely unlikely, but it falls into the realm of better safe than sorry.

They are not "dehumanizing" you by asking you to turn off your iPod for 15 minutes. You're just looking for something to be outraged over. Stick to the TSA, where the distrust and anger is actually warranted.

Netflix + Altitude?

[malus]

Forget it. I'm not watching movies when I fly. I'm drinking over-priced booze and groping flight attendants.

Pretty easy as far as I can see

[bernywork]

Multicast and an Aruba / Cisco AP for every 10 seats? Can't be that hard can it? It would be interesting sniffing data on that plane...

Its the cellphones that are the problem

[SplashMyBandit]

Its the cellphones that were the real problem, for two principal reasons:

• * When the 700+ cellphones and devices pass near all the cellphone towers visible to the high-flying aircraft those towers can be overloaded, and
• * Having people jibber-jabbering on cellphones in close confines over longer flights will result in all sorts of social problems (conflicts, if someone can't stop talking really annoyingly over the entire flight).

Initially the 'navigation' angle was used as the effects were unknown, but pretty much that has been found to be a non-issue - but still a handy excuse to keep cellphone use down for the above reasons.

Tag this meaningless

[damn_registrars]

If it is only for the largest planes, then it isn't all that helpful for a lot of travellers (myself included). Many people find the vast majority of their air travel is on small jets or turboprops. If this never trickles down to those - and likely it never will - then it doesn't matter. This reminds me of reading a Continental in-flight magazine that told me about the new full-recline sleeper seats that are in first class on the largest planes. Being as I was riding steerage class on an EmbraerJet - and all the other legs of my journey were the same - it had no value for my travel.

Re:Terrible airline.

[superposed]

It would be nice if they invested more in edible food and better service."

I used to wonder how shortchanging customers on food could possibly make a significant difference to the profit on a multi-hundred-dollar ticket. Then I realized that in a world where everyone chooses the cheapest ticket from Orbitz or Kayak, airlines have to get their ticket price as low as possible. If that means nickle-and-diming their customers, scrimping on food and service, then that's what they'll do. Because if they don't, a competitor will, and the competitor will be able to sell many more tickets for a few dollars less.

Don't Expect Much

[Nikkos]

I flew AA to Japan and back earlier this year. The in-flight entertainment systems were spotty and from what I could tell, at least 10% of them didn't work well if at all - including 2 of the 5 nearest me. Touchscreens didn't work, sound plugs didn't work, random resets in the middle of movies (with no recourse but to watch the whole movie over again) or devices that would do nothing but show static. The systems were so unbelievably crappy that it made me wonder how well the rest of the aircraft was serviced.

Re:Louis C.K. on wi-fi and the miracle of flight

[Corse32]

3 that guy, Legend.

Re:"from an on-board library"

[jd2112]

Expect to pay $39.95 to watch a movie, and have a smaller and more out of date selection than your average Redbox kiosk.