In-flight broadband ready for take-off
By Chris Green in Editorial
Posted in In-Flight, Travel, Broadband on
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be invited on-board a test flight for one of several in-flight internet services being trialled at the time.
The one that got all the attention was Boeing’s now defunct Connexions service, but the one I was on was different - instead of bringing wired broadband and an Ethernet socket to each seat, this used 802.11b Wi-Fi to flood the entire plane with internet connectivity. It was a great idea and a successful trial. Unfortunately, nobody had the time or the money to take a transatlantic fleet out of service long enough to install the technology, so Connexions, and every other in-flight broadband service in development was eventually buried.
Fortunately, nobody bothered to tell BlackBerry-maker RIM, internet portal operator Yahoo and US domestic airline JetBlue, as the three are collaborating on a new pilot (sorry) project to revive in-flight wireless broadband.
The best bit is that the service will be free, in return for exposing you to lots of advertising and probably requiring registration, and some types of bandwidth-heavy content and services will be blocked (only fair) to conserve bandwidth and running costs.
JetBlue has already demonstrated innovation in airline service, by piping actual terrestrial and satellite TV channels to seatback screens rather than the usual dross on a looping tape. This was particularly useful for passengers on a JetBlue flight to Los Angeles in September 2005, who were able to watch their own flight perform an emergency landing on live TV after its landing gear jammed in the wrong position. The landing was textbook and the pilot a credit to the airline. It was so impressive that I would not hesitate to fly JetBlue whenever possible.
Anyway - back to the point - anything that gives me access to my email and the web in-flight for a reasonable cost (free is very reasonable) is good in my book, and it should be an easier and cheaper deployment than fitting roaming cells for mobile phones, not to mention far less annoying for passengers.
In short - in-flight broadband = good, in-flight mobile phone service = bad!
Rated: 100% (4 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe - December 11, 2007 on 8:24 pm
JetBlue is our favourite domestic airline - comfy seats, bags of legroom, DirectTV to the seat, nice terminals, blue potato chips and fair prices. As you say, I trust them not to make a mess of it.
Mary
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