Boeing Connexion, No More Wi-Fi at 30,000 ft?

symonty writes "After 6 years and one billion dollars, Boeing is evaluating whether or not their wifi for planes connectivity business can be a viable business. " I've never had the actual pleasure of evaluating it or not; some folks, however, have said it's a great service.

Re:Money versus power

[HaloZero]

It'd probably be a shittonne cheaper to setup and manage, too. Therefore, it's not going to cost the customer almost what they would pay for a month from a traditional ISP.

Even with an outlet, there's no way I'm going to pay 26.95 for a piss-poor connection with a ton of restrictions.

(The above assumes that the service is locked down against anything put port 80.)

Re:Whoah

[Andy Dodd]

There are two basic components needed for a useful Wi-Fi connection:

1) A WiFi access point. This is reasonably easy, even if you have to make it play nice on the plane. Flight safety certification/qualification is difficult. The FAA is (understandably) paranoid about such things and I'm glad they are.

2) A connection to the outside world. On an airplane, this is much more difficult. Unless you want the system to be restricted to certain service areas (like CONUS only), this part means "satellite". Satellite means EXPENSIVE. Hell, even to provide full coverage of the CONUS airspace from the ground would be extremely expensive. $1 billion for such infrastructure seems cheap to me.

Re:Money versus power

[Steve Cox]

> Who is going to pay for an Internet connection on a really long flight when their laptop
> battery can't carry a charge long enough to use it all the way?

Modern long/mediaum haul aircraft have personal power outlets on each seat into which you can plug special power adapters/inverters [expansys.com]. I only had a problem once, and that was easily solved by asking the stewardess to turn the power on....

The biggest issue with these kind of internet connections is the price, which would certainly stop me from using it unless the company is willing to foot the bill (Anyway, I'd rather be watching a movie or sleeping than working).

Steve.

Re:Whoah

[Kjella]

First of all, there's no "only" in doing it. WiFi, like mobile phones are designed to punch through walls and compared to the faint signals from the ground, it doesn't take much to disturb them. Still, if that was the true reason they'd offer you a ethernet jack instead. The real issue is the big honking broadband connection from the plane. Try telling the FAA you want to put a high-powered transmitter/reciever onboard a commercial jet. If you were a little start-up with "a few million", you wouldn't even pass the giggle test. You would have spent that money before you even had an overview over all the certifications and tests you had to pass.

Re:When will it end...

[IdahoEv]

What's next? The seats?

Yeah, maybe [nwsource.com].

For what it's worth, I liked the service a lot

[pkx]

It wasn't terribly fast, but once I read that it'd be available, I charged up a few extra batteries for my flight from Chicago to Copenhagen (SAS Airlines).

Also keep in mind that most airlines have power outlets in their higher-class seats. Some even have them in every seat. Check out http://www.seatguru.com/ [seatguru.com] to see the ammenities in various airlines' planes.

I even used a softphone (Cisco IP Communicator) and made a phone call from the flight! Sure, there was about a second of lag, but people around me were pretty amazed (even an SAS pilot sitting next to me - he had never seen such a thing..).

I paid the $30 for 8 hours of service and would gladly do it again.

Re:Whoah

[LWATCDR]

You left out that most likely they are using a satellite for the connection.
That means that you would have to mount a phased array antenna. That means cable runs through the pressure vessel, extra drag, lightning protection and testing....
Yes it is a lot more expensive than just plugging in a wap.

You don't know what you're talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked as an intern for Boeing during the summer of 2001 for an antennas group that was developing the antenna to be used. It's a phased array antenna. Not easy to design and not cheap to build. It's also a good deal more sophisticated than the wifi antenna hooked up to your laptop. As the airplane is moving it has to move from one satellite to another as it gets out of range of each successive connection point. A phased array antenna effectively steers its pointing direction electronically taking advantage of constructive and destructive interference of the rf waves. It's not like your old tv or radio antennas that you have to jiggle around until you get a good signal. Also, you're trying to send/receive the signal at such a great distance that there's no way you can get enough power to make a connection using a simple omnidirectional antenna. Since the airplane is moving, the antenna has to know where the satellite is and constantly keep itself pointed at it. When that satellite gets out of range it has to know where the next one is, etc. It also gets much more complicated to transmit radio waves, especially broadband, once you try to get them through the atmosphere.

I can't say that I think it was a wise decision on the part of Boeing to continue the development of Connexion after the whole 9/11 thing happened but this technology would definitely be worth $1 billion assuming that the airline industry was what it used to be. Boeing saw the airline industry plummet after 9/11 and still chose to keep spending money on this despite having customers back out and watching half the airlines in operation file for bankruptcy. Very cool technology but, unfortunately, it just came together at the wrong time. Maybe in a few years it will catch on again.

Aircell Axcess

[Malluck]

Yes, Boeing getting out of the broadband business, but they are not the only providers of air based broadband. Enter Aircell [aircell.com]. They already offer an Iridium (satillite) based data connection products and services. Yes, it's dead slow. You're not going to be playing Doom3 or any other FPS over this link.

A few weeks back Aircell [aircell.com] also picked up the spectrum currently used by verizons air-to-ground telephone service (Magnastar). Air-to-ground communications offers lower latency, higher speed data connections. Magnastar will be phased out starting in 2008, coinciding with Aircells new broadband service.

Aircell is poised to roll out a major broadband service by 2008.

Re:Money versus power

[zaphod_es]

You can find out what each airline offers at http://seatguru.com/articles/in-seat_laptop_power. php [seatguru.com]

The aircraft power supply is usually restricted to 75 watts which is a problem for MacBook Pro and many powerful 17" PC laptops which need more than that.

Re:Money versus power

[Dufffader]

Most airlines provide power sockets onboard anyways so you can run it on fresh juice. I've never actually used it since most of the time, I dont need more than 1 hr of use on a flight.

I got to test out the Boeing connexion service on a recent flight from Singapore to Paris, where they were giving out something like 15mins of connection free to all passengers that look like they are carrying a laptop. I must say that I was impressed with the service. I thought I felt there was a lag, but like all IP stuff, you can't be sure if its much worse than a landline connection over a wifi network. At the end of the trial, I was happy, but definitely WILL NOT pay top dollars for the service. Knowing how much they charge for a voice call on board, I'm sure the airlines are hoping to charge something ridiculous with it.

So... the technology is nice, but no one except for hte occasional businessman in first class is going to be able to afford it.

Re:Money versus power

[scapaman]

Just like GNER in the backwards old UK. Free internet for all this month too, not just those in 1st class http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/mobileoffice/gotry [gner.co.uk]

Another great service killed by telecom carriers

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the major reasons that this service didn't become more widely available was the contracts that US carriers have with air to ground telephone services. They were unable to ditch the stupid overpriced, very underutilized phones in order to allow a competing communications service on the planes. Immediately after the launch of the inflight connexion services, the air phones suddenly started being pushed for email acccess. Which of course needed a modem and serious knowledge to make work. Not to mention a seriously large bank account to pay for the connection.

If it weren't for the contracts with the air phone carriers, I think the service would have been very viable. My trips have been reduced in lenght recently, going from 6 or so international trips a year to maybe 1, but the number of trips that I fly up and down that West Coast have doubled. And on those flights, which are about 2 and a half to 3 hours, broadband would be a wonderful feature to have on a plane. Based on very non-scientific methods (looking at what people are doing while heading to the back of the plane) I would say that most of the people on those flights are business people, and probably 15 to 20 people working on laptops on each flight. And I'm pretty sure that they would all use the service. I know that I would. Which compared to seeing absolutly nobody using the airphones, makes me think that the broadband would have much more use than the phones ever did.

And everyone who is complaining about needing more power - get another battery. And power isn't the real problem, at least for me. The real problem is being mashed in a seat and not having enough room to use the thing.

Re:I've used something like it

[slagell]

Boeing provides the service on non-Boeing planes. I used the BOeing ISP on a SAS flight on Airbus.

try ANA

[calculadoru]

ANA (All Nippon Airways) have normal plugs built into each seat. power comes on as soon as you're airborne, so does the internet - and guess what, it all works seamlessly. they'll even lend you a LAN cable if you haven't brought your own - and they also have great service. a bit expensive but well worth it if you fly Tokyo - NY.

just FIY.

Re:Whoah

[Twanfox]

No, it's not always lazyness that prompts the 'turn all things off' mentality. I found a nice little article that describes some cases in which even FCC certified equipment raidiates more RF than it should, and why it is bad. Maybe it'll help.

http://www.issues.org/19.2/strauss.htm [issues.org]

Re:Money versus power - verses time

[bored_lurker]

Yeah, I was shock too when he came on line from 30k feet with such low latency - I expected major lag. I really don't know what system was used, although I think it must have been Connexion as it was Lufthansa flight IIRC.

If you are looking into low latency mobilty satillite is typically not a good choice. I don't know if terrestrial networks are possible for you but I would seriously look into WiMax instead. I have had some involvement with it for the last couiple of years and it holds some amazing potentials.

Best wishes on your project

Re:Eventually. . .

[ecxman]

"It doesn't cost a whole lot for them to offer the service."

What do you base this on? FCC regulations require a dedicated air-to-ground system, which currently does not exist, or an air-to-satellite system. If you want to offer the service over water, then you need to support air-to-sat. If you want low latency over the ground, then you want air-to-ground. Boeing spent Billions setting up the system they have. Yes inmarsat offers a similar service with lower bandwidth. The FAA would not allow WiFi in the cabin unless you can prove that the system will not interfere with the avionics systems. Boeing spent the time and money developing an AP that does not. They did not go out and buy a Linksys WAP and connect it to a satellite transmitter/receiver and call it Internet service. Boeing, like any other business, had to pass the cost onto the airlines that wanted to use the service. So the statement that it does not "cost a whole lot for them to offer the service" is baseless and not well thought out.

Re:Whoah

[LWATCDR]

Actually I think phones use a terrestrial network.
I could be wrong but I remember when I flew to Hawaii a few years ago that they told us the phones where not going to work for several hours of the flight. It is pretty logical. At 20,000 ft you have a line of site of better than 200 miles. It wouldn't take that many towers to cover the US and or Europe. I knew a guy with a LanceAir IVP home built. He mounted a FM radio in it for music, he would often pick up stations from a few hundred miles away when he was altitude.

Re:When will it end...

[ipfwadm]

I saw that a while ago, though the article now says Airbus abandoned the idea a few years back. In any event, the idea of standing-room only on a plane should be made illegal. There's a reason you're supposed to lean forward and hug your legs in a plane crash - your spine has very little compression strength. So any force running parallel to your spine (think a plane hitting the ground while you're sitting up - or worse, standing) is a very bad thing. Leaning forward makes that force more perpendicular to your spine. A plane full of standing folks in a crash is a plane with no survivors.

Re:Billion Dollars and they did not launch satelli

[DarthBart]

The service was based on leasing transponders ( around 8mb/s per transponder )

8mb/s on a 36Mhz transponder? Nope. You can run a full-duplex T3 (45Mbps) on a 36Mhz transponder using 16QAM modulation. It beats the hell out of the transponder, but it can be done.

Tie the AP into an one of the new 450Kb/s BGAN units from Inmarsat. There's full coverage over Europe and Asia with CONUS coming on line in a month or two and the device is no bigger than a laptop.

VOIP works fine

[ThreeDayMonk]

I used Skype on a flight somewhere over Siberia (on Lufthansa's Frankfurt-Osaka route). It worked fine, with quite tolerable latency.