Airlines to Offer In-Flight Internet Service 181
Ponca City, We Love You writes "JetBlue Airways will soon begin testing a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight. A recent survey found that 26 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on a two-to-four-hour flight and 45 percent would pay that amount for a flight longer than four hours. The airlines plans to turn their planes into the equivalent of a wireless hot spot once the aircraft reaches its cruising altitude but service will not be available on takeoff and landing. While the technology could allow travelers to make phone calls over the Internet, most carriers say they have no plans to allow voice communications."
No Voice? (Score:4, Insightful)
and how could they limit that? wouldn't it all be packets at that point?
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Well, you just crack open the back of the seat, then with some wires, and alligator clips you.....
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When I'm stuck in a plane, I don't want to be forced to listen to your screaming baby.
When I'm stuck in a plane, I don't want to be forced to listen to your kids whining "Mommy, how much longer"
When I'm stuck in a plane, I don't want to be forced to get up as soon as the food has been served because you n
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youve got to be kidding me. there is absolutely no reason i need to hear the person i am wedged next to talking about the CUTEST thing his daugther did the other day. flying is unenjoyable enough without sitting through a conversation with my seat neighbors aunt tillie about the smallest little bullshit details in his life because they are so bored they dont have anything else to do.
even worse would be a teenage girl (or a 30-something who wishes she was a teenage gi
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While I agree whole heartedly with your views on the thoughts of having to listen to people yammer on a phone on the airplane, I don't really find the experience that bad otherwise.
That's what drinks are for...makes the trip MUCH better.
I've learned one thing in life, there are two people to be nice to. You bartender (naturally), and your flight attendant, because THEY are your bartender in the air.
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Yeah, and it's not like you could use VPN, SSH, DNS or ICMP tunneling to bypass that. Oh wait, you can..
Latency kills... (Score:2)
I'm going to guess that the latency on the aircraft internet is going to be quite high. If latency is not large enough to make voice unusable, they can randomly slow outbound packets, just enough to make calls unusable. A little extra latency here and there won't hurt web browsing, email, or most other things...
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It's likely that they'll do what they can to avoid having someone transmit large amounts of data through a presumably quite expensive link.
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Re:No Voice? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always wondered just how much money the airlines make from those seatphones. I've never seen anybody use one, ever.
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Plugging ports and shaping traffic (Score:2)
Plugging ports and shaping traffic is the worst thing they could possibly do. Instead of having normal conversations, everybody will be shouting...
Just what I was thinking. (Score:1, Redundant)
That sounds to me like a recipe for FAIL. I guess they could make the connection high latency and low bandwidth - i.e. crappy.
Re:No Voice? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny that most airlines have had in-seat phones on planes for over a decade...
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Even funnier that these phones are incredibly expensive to use, and the airlines want to prevent people using free VOIP while onboard.
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That's roughly '02-'05, mostly smaller jets but some large Boeings (a 747 or so, I believe...I'm no good at identifying planes for the most part). All of this was in coach, so who knows in first class.
Re:No Voice? (Score:5, Insightful)
By telling you "voice communication will not be allowed".
wouldn't it all be packets at that point?
Not at the point where you talk into the microphone. It's pretty easy to detect, and given just how annoying it is to sit next to a person talking into their cell phone ... it wouldn't take long for your seat neighbour would complain to the stewardess.
Re:No Voice? (Score:2)
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This doesn't seem like a good reason since they allow phonecalls on their backseat phones -- the same problem would exist.
Second problem: "I call bullshoot!" From your description, I don't think you have ever sat next to someone on a cellphone while they w
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I disagree. And so, apparently, do a lot of other people. There's something inherently jarring about only hearing one side of a conversation. Two people talking is easy to tune out, but one person talki
Re:No Voice? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Please excuse my ignorance but, wouldn't there be a problem of lattency (lag)?
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Worst nightmare (Score:4, Interesting)
FTA: "Many travelers find the prospect of phone calls much less palatable than having a seatmate quietly browsing e-mail."
Yes. Imagine sitting in the center seat between two obese passengers talking non-stop about things you don't want to know about.
What would you do?
What could you possibly do at that point?Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Worst nightmare (Score:5, Insightful)
Admittedly if it's loud, it's annoying, but what's so different about a phone than a face to face conversation?
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Personally, I think that some people just wouldn't like the person next to them at all. Cell phone or not.
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That, and the fact that phone conversations are extremely phatic [wikipedia.org] by nature. Not only do you get much less than 100% of the information, but most of the babble that's going on isn't information at all, which to you will gradually translate from a mild irritation at such a boring stream of uninteresting yakking, to eventually snatching the annoyer
Re:Worst nightmare (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Worst nightmare (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've always been interested in why people find it ok to fart in the bathroom but not on the couch with your sweetheart?
Admittedly if it's loud, it's annoying, but what's so different about a fart in the bathroom to a face to face fart?
Cheers,
Fozzy
Re:Worst nightmare (Score:4, Insightful)
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Face to face... not butt to face. hehe
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There's a name for this but it escapes me current, but the idea is that our brains are hard-wired to pick up speech. When we hear both sides of the conversation (two people talking) then we realize that we arent being spoken to so we tune it out. when we only hear one side of the conversation (guy talking into phone) we subconsciously think "hey, someone is speaking, perhaps they are speaking t
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Ze germans do something amazing on their trains! There is a Ruhezone (lit. tranquility zone) where talking, listening to music, making noise in general is strictly forbidden. Something like that should be done in airplanes too.
In Japan, talking on the cell phone on subways is frowned upon (forbidden? I'm not sure), it is not uncommon for people to forcibly shut done your phone if you're yapping.
Had me until this line... (Score:5, Funny)
Note to everyone, declaring this "the year of implementation x of tech y" automatically sets that tech back indefinitely. This is how this will work out now. The service will be used for years by technically elite fliers who rave over its superior stability when compared to ground based wi-fi. Then several years down the road a group with the motto "airline wifi for humans" will again attempt to make the year of "in-flight internet access", only to realize that the people are still reluctant to adopt it. It's a proven paradigm.
So remember, if you are passionate about a technology, do not declare this "the year of it," as you are only hurting it.
Re:Had me until this line... (Score:5, Funny)
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But that may not be a bad thing to bring people in before it's truly ready. I was first introduced to Linux back 10 years ago, and I went away thinking it was not ready for regular desktop use for a normal person. But that first version was my baseline, and as the years went by, I came away more and more impressed with what the Linux communitie
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Maybe because the aircraft and the associated internal network is designed for it at the start.
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But it's already been available [wikipedia.org]. I used it on a transatlantic Lufthansa flight in 2006 just before Boeing shut it down. Tunneled into my company's LAN via VPN and printed some stuff onto an office printer from the middle of the Atlantic at 36,000 feet, just so I could say I've
No voice calls? (Score:1)
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I wouldn't like to either talk to someone on the phone or have to listen to other people's conversations while on a plane.
YMMV.
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offtopic (Score:4, Funny)
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w00t (Score:2, Funny)
Don't hold your breath (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that the first planes to be fitted with this will take off in 2008 (allegedly). That doesn't mean that every plane there is will suddenly become equipped with it. Usually, such things take a long, long time.
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Very well (Score:1, Interesting)
What about connection speeds? Data limits? Which satellites? Connection stability?
The Internet is the second most important feature. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't mind paying upwards of $40 for a flight for web access, actually, but I'd assume few others would. Speed/latency isn't an issue, but I do wonder how well it would work over large bodies of water.
Re:The Internet is the second most important featu (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:The Internet is the second most important featu (Score:2)
Two things... (Score:1, Insightful)
2) If they don't provide power plugs at the seats, it'll be a 1-2 hour internet experience before the blasted battery drains...
Note: American Airlines, to its credit, provides power to about half the seats in coach.
Note to self: sell tickets when the first networked FPS game occurs and the staff, well, melts down
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Actually, it was very popular on Lufthansa. The problem was that Boeing (owned Connexion) wasn't seeing much ROI across all the airlines and couldn't keep the service running for its limited deployment throughout the carriers. US airlines couldn't afford to install it, generally.
...not during takeoff and landing, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
I keep hearing this (Score:2)
This internet will also be for porn (Score:2, Funny)
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Likely very limited bandwidth (Score:2)
Flying into the US (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Just asking.
-sb (dreading the horribly long flight across the Pacific he faces to go home for Christmas)
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This may be another case of a rule that once made sense, that no-one wants to revisit.
No room anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice about-face (Score:2)
"OMG WTF!? Turn off all your wireless devices or we'll all die!"
Alaska Airlines... (Score:2)
Obligatory request. (Score:2, Funny)
- pr0n
- the phrase "...in their upright position before landing..."
that would be great, thanks.
Not allowing VOIP.. (Score:2)
Duh... (Score:2)
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The terrorists can boot up and IM each of the pasengers
What would be great if you could send e-mails to the pilots.
Dear Friend,
I wish to approach you with a request that would be of immense benefit to
the both of us. In order for us to ascend to heaven, we need to participate
in destroying America. To fulfill that purpose, we've been assigned
by the hierarchical superiors of our terrorist organisation the task of
landing this airplane into the White House.
However, we unfortunately do need meet th