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.'"

Not a problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as we won't be able to take our laptops or other gadgets on board aircraft for much longer.

Well DUH

[abscissa]

If you can't bring your laptop on the flight, what did they expect!!? Psy Internet?.... Good going guys!! There is also no market for golf lessons on the flight either.

where's the market

[annakin]

As evidenced by Sept. 11's Flight 93, cell phones work perfectly well at high altitudes. So as the broadband capability of these phones increases, it's obvious that dedicated services such as Connexion are targeting a redundant market.

Re:pricing

[frisket]

I think they were overoptimistic at that price. There isn't a "market" for this service: rightly or wrongly, people expect it to be free of charge, like a seat, or in-flight meals on long-haul.

I think the real reason was money.

[jskline]

I think the real reason for their canning this was that they couldn't find the market for charging $50 for 5 minutes of broadband time on the flights!

You have to remember that anything in or around an airport costs as much as 2000 times its actual value. What made you think they wouldn't try this with broadband?

Re:where's the market

[daranz]

Cellphones don't work when you're over the middle of an ocean. Satellites, on the other hand, can. Plus, I suspect it's easier to use a satellite connection for live TV, than to try and and pipe it over a cellphone network.

Besides, if you're flying over multiple countries, you need to get on several different cellphone networks, which means having to sign contracts with multiple providers if you wanna connect the entire plane, or having to worry about huge roaming charges. Not to mention cellphones don't work everywhere over land either, and in some regions, networks might be incapable of handling anything besides voice traffic.

Connexion probably didn't take off (pun intended) because of the costs invovled. You could pay for a landline connection for a month with what you had to pay for an entire flight of Internet access

Re:pricing

[interiot]

I'm not so sure... Previously, the only way to communicate with anyone on a 14 hour flight was voice calls which are quite expensive as well. At least this way business travellers could get some extra work done, and not be completely out of touch with the world for a whole 14-hour period. Even hotels charge you for internet access (especially business-oriented ones).

Re:pricing

[interiot]

... which is why I added "especially for business travellers". Some mainstream business-oriented hotels charge as high as $20/day for internet+VPN.

Flight times

[Mr_Silver]

Speaking personally, if i'm on a flight under 3 hours then by the time you've gone up, had a drink and got your food out of the way, you're getting ready to land again.

Flights that are 4-5 hours, I usually watch the film, read the book or (if i'm really inclined to do some work) I'll fire up my laptop and work on something offline.

Flights that are over 5 hours, I'll generally try and catch some sleep so that I'm refreshed when I get there.

As such, there is only small chance that i'll even think about using a laptop and, even then, the requirement for internet is limited. It doesn't surprise me that this venture is not particually sucessful.

imagine that

[v1]

the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected.

Translation: not nearly as many people are willing to get jacked for $35/hr for internet access as we had believed.

Though on a completely different angle, at the rate things are going now, soon we won't be able to get on a plane with anything short of our underwear, and will have to fed-ex our luggage to our destination. What happened to the good 'ol days when the people were more scared of the public than the government was?

Re:pricing

[morie]

Yeah... 27$ for a few hour flight is so ultra cheap.
Considering that most people pay about that much at home for a MONTH of broadband

And what about flight itself! It is so expensive! I can ride my bike for three hours almost for free, but for a flight I have to pay hundreds of euros. Why would anyone want that?

The real reason this won't fly

[Inode Jones]

The real reason? I couldn't use it very well even if I wanted to pay.

Given how US airlines pack you in like sardines, I can't open up my notebook larger than 60 degrees. That's not enough to see the display properly. The last thing I'm gonna do in this configuration is connect to the Internet.

Re:pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they were overoptimistic at that price. There isn't a "market" for this service: rightly or wrongly, people expect it to be free of charge, like a seat, or in-flight meals on long-haul.

That price isn't ridiculously more than T-Mobile or similar services-- which you have to pay for to get wireless access in almost every airport nowadays (excluding the terminals of a couple of generous airlines like JetBlue.) Not to mention every Starbucks and Kinkos. And I would think people would expect free wireless in a Starbucks before flying over the Atlantic on a 747.

If the service is a failure it's not because of the price. I don't think this is the sole reason, but I did fly an Austrian Air flight that was equipped with the service and I can tell you that they made no effort to let you know it existed (the stewardess didn't even have any idea it was there.) I only knew of it because my co-worker had used it before.

Re:Well DUH

[hey!]

If you can't bring your laptop on the flight, what did they expect!!?

If this happens, then JetBlue will probably build a keyboard into the seat tray. Maybe you'd VPN into your corporate network.

Enough ubiquitous Internet and terminal access and you end up with laptops and PDAs being obsolete.

Re:Well DUH

[Ctrl-Alt-Del]

It's not really practical to use a laptop on a plane, unless you're in business/first class; firstly due to the lack of space to actually get it out, and secondly, few airlines provide power to economy class seats.

Re:Well DUH

[IAmTheDave]

The restrictions on flights have been lifted, and have for days. Laptops along with everything else are perfectly fine.

<annoyed troll>That's because the government already had the effect they wanted - up the security threat level, annoy everyone, throw some FUD around, make everyone go "ahhh, yeah, terror, good thing we have this invasive security" and GWB gets a bump in his abysmal 3x% approval rating.<annoyed troll>

On a slightly different note, I can't say for sure, but the "market" is that more people fly your airline. With airlines cutting back to an unbelievable degree on food, service, charging for headphone rental, etc., and then wanting to charge what I can only assume is $3/minute or more to be logged on, even the travelers with the biggest of expense accounts is gonna know they can wait 2-3 hours to get their email.

The stupid in-flight phones never really took off either (except as a novelty - "hey kids, Dad's calling from in the air!") because they were so rediculously expensive.

Thanks, but until it's like $5 for internet access for the whole flight, I'll just wait until we land and hit up the nearest Starbucks or Panera Bread for my wifi.

A common misconception

[kahei]

Cellphones, of course, don't work on flights as a general rule. They only work on flights THAT PASS OVER LOTS OF CELL PHONE CELLS. The Pacific, the Gobi, the Sahara, and Greenland are all good examples of places not rich in cell phone cells.

Of course, if by 'plane travel' you unconsciously mean 'plane travel within the continental United States', then sure, you can just use your cell phone.

What were they charging? $5/minute or something?

[gelfling]

Airlines love to advertise services like this or phones on planes when they first came out and then you discover that it's only slightly less expensive than a heroin habit. This is why airlines are winding down in flight phones - not because of cell phones or security but instead after the first few years of some yahoo calling "Woo Hoo guess what Cleetus I'm callin ya from tha plane!!!!!" the charm of a $40 phone call wears off.

Re:where's the market

[andrewman327]

If cell phones didn't work at high altitude, why would the FCC/FAA ban them? If people pulled them out and always saw zero signal they wouldn't be trying to make calls.

Re:pricing

[westlake]

They're paying shitloads of money for those tickets anyway,

The airlines aren't making shitloads of money these days and the infrastructure for sattelite broadband is expensive. It isn't difficult to imagine a more or less permanent ban on carry-on laptops on the northeast coriddor and North Atlantic runs.