Boeing Gets FCC Approval For Broadband Service

lba writes "Boeing's plans to offer broadband on their planes (as in this earlier /. article) gets into the next phase... BBC News has a story about them now getting FCC approval for this project. Protoypes of Connexion, as the service is called, would be installed on Lufthansa planes in about a year. Three US Airline companies canceled their support for the project last November."

Wrong department

[Brendan Byrd]

This is Boeing, not American Airlines. Boeing makes planes, not fly them. The guys making the planes make a LOT of money.

Retrofit

[Mr. X]

Boeing can retrofit the already sold planes with this new tech.. It's not limited to only new planes. This gives them work to do when the airlines stop ordering new planes.

Re:Finally

[Dolly_Llama]

We Americans are the most wired country in the world, and certainly one of the most gadget-happy

I think that might be an over generalization. There is a great disparity between haves and have nots in this country such that it'd be hard to support that claim. Count the palm pilots in rural mississippi or louisiana. If there were a "most wired" or "most gadget-happy" nation, I'd have to give it to Singapore or Japan.

Re:Wha???

[Anonymous Coward]

This is off-topic, but the World Series was originally the "New York World Series", named after the newspaper "New York World" that sponsored it. People got sick of saying that so it got shortened to the "World Series." It has nothing to do with claiming the US (and Canada) are the entire world.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were a "most wired" or "most gadget-happy" nation, I'd have to give it to Singapore or Japan.

I have no facts about "most gadget happy", but "most wired" does exist - currently (as of June 2001) the honor is a tie, and goes to Switzerland and Canada [multimediator.com] with 73%

The US was a close second (third?) with 72%.

I don't want to be pessimistic

[Breace]

but don't have your hopes up yet.

I work in the industry, and in fact our product would probably benefit (as in, sold more) if Connexion was available.

I have to say though that it is at the moment mainly vapor. (their demo link uses a satellite dish the size of Washington). I've read a bunch of their documents, and it's surprising how much time they spent on describing silly details and being very vague about how to actually solve the real problems.

Their biggest problem though: they have a .com business plan. As in, it don't make no sense. To sum it up: we are going get this fast pipe to the airplane and then we are all going to be rich. It sounds an awful lot like the in-seat airphones fiasco in the making. (for those who don't know it: these things have only COST money, which was carried by GTE & AT&T)

Again, I would love to have a high speed connection to the plane, but there are many problems to overcome. On the less-technical side for example: tech support. Take an office with 300 people all connected to the internet. What kind of staff is needed to support that? Who's going to do that in the airplane? I can guarantee you that it's not going to be the flight attendants. Especially in the US where their union will scream bloody murder over just the slightest increase in workload.

Sorry to be so negative, but the combination of Boeings bureaucracy and a .com business plan just doesn't sound good...

Re:Foreign flight requirements

[Brendan Byrd]

Seeing as it's not a major issue between airlines (as in: "nobody's going to stop going to an airline because this one has cheap air-phone costs"), they will probably just quietly implement voice-over-IP and still charge the $9/min. After all, airlines still charge sky-high prices for food.

Not just for first class snobs

[Louis]

Most of the latest technological advances in in-flight operations have not been confined to first class:

1. laptop power outlets: Not just in first class but also in a wide selection of coach seats.

2. LCD screens: On new 767/777s most airlines have chosen to install the new LCDs on all seats, coach included.

3. Satellite TV: Jetblue doesn't have a first class section, so all seats have LCDs with satellite tv.

4. GTE Airfones: Although much maligned (with reason) these also debuted in coach as well as first.