Productivity, Or Just A Hassle?
by Paul McGoldrick
Communications history was made on May 17, 2004. At 1018Z an executive from Connexion by Boeing sent an e-mail to the US from a Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 (flight LH452, Munich to Los Angeles) writing, "Hello from 33,000 feet above Germany." Not as unexpected as Bell's "Mr Watson, come here, I want you," but just as effective PR.
Although Lufthansa and British Airways both participated in the high-speed Connexion trials in 2003, the latter has not yet signed up with Boeing. Other carriers have, including SAS, JAL, SIA, CIA, and KAL and one wonders how much, if any, the availability of Internet connections at 33,000 feet will influence the choice of carrier in a couple of years. As of today Lufthansa has five planes equipped and will have all its long-haul fleet equipped by 2006.
On board the aircraft the most critical technical problem was the design of the always-correctly-orientated satellite antennas. Distribution of the signals to individual seats is either by Ethernet cable or 802.11b, or both. The satellites were already in place (Intelsat over the Atlantic, Space Communications Corp over Asia/Pacific) so the expense of getting to a production stage was quite low for Boeing. The company claims that a new Connexion by Boeing system can be installed in any 100+ seat airplane during a regular maintenance interval, and they have negotiated with Rockwell-Collins to launch a service for business jets: that service, Collins eXchange, will launch in 2005 with all the Bombardier family being considered launch aircraft.
Boeing is also pushing for maritime service installations and this is a much better-known and understood market for communications. Certainly Internet access from cruise vessels will be welcomed by many passengers and it should be possible to provide numerous Wi-Fi hot spots in public areas to avoid the line-up that so many of us experience at trade shows when you want to check your e-mail.
Pricing the service has been an interesting exercise to watch. The final formula is broken down into two different services, Internet Flight and Internet Minutes. The former is a basic all-you-can-eat service (from the magic 10,000 feet "ping" on the way up, to the flight attendant announcement at 10,000 feet on the way down) priced at $29.95 for 6+ hour long-haul flights, $19.95 for 3 - 6 hour medium-haul flights, and $14.95 for less than 3 hours of flight-time. The pay by the minute program charges $9.95 ($7.95 for a less than 3-hour flight) for the first thirty minutes and then $0.25 per minute thereafter.
Will people pay for such services? Boeing believes so and Lufthansa has thrown a freebie news-type access into the equation, called FlyNet, to entice the user to get that laptop turned on and ready to look at other information, maybe once the third gin-and-tonic has kicked in at 35,000 feet with alcohol compression effects?
But I'm not so sure that there are that many people who are willing to replace their banned use of cell phones in-air with a paid e-mail service. Regrettably, I do see the possibility of the cell phone being replaced in air with voice-over-IP use…boy, won't that be nice…the occupant of the next seat can spend the 10 hours to Europe telling all his family and friends about what nice flight attendants we have, and how he is eating chicken-something for dinner, and what wine is being served today and, well, just everything of momentous import when all the rest of us want to do is sleep.
There are positives for the airlines in installing these systems beyond the access fees that they will get a share of. They will be able to peddle advertising and sponsorships, and they will move the in-flight "Mall" magazine into an interactive experience on your laptop. Boeing also suggests that the systems can be used to update the in-flight entertainment content on the fly, or obtain medical assistance from a physician on the ground during an emergency; but there are also negatives for most of us: the transmission of security camera content back to earth, manifest information colored by profiling, and a movement away from local flight data monitoring to some kind of automated system on the ground.
The first news report from the airborne LH452 was filed to PRNewswire
using the Connexion by Boeing system at 37,000 feet "somewhere over
Canada." That has to be years ahead of the time it took for the first
story being filed using Bell's telephone.