Mobile working Toolkit

In-flight Wi-Fi prepares to take off

Tags:
Boeing,
Wireless-enabled Airplanes

Richard Shim CNET News

Published: 29 Mar 2004 14:55 BST

How is it that you can use Wi-Fi on a plane in flight and not a cell service?
Cellphones have a few characteristics that are different than 802.11b-equipped devices. The frequencies are somewhat higher. They mess the heck out of a ground network. With a cellphone, you are crossing and looking at a number of separate cells. The biggest of the regulatory hurdles is dealing with the Federal Communications Commission and demonstrating that you are not going to screw up the terrestrial cell network by using a cellphone in a plane. And this changes depending on whose airspace you happen to be flying over. We have to get licences to operate in 103 countries around the world and we currently have about 57 in hand...So it is really a very region-by-region issue.

Can you explain the Boeing connection. How does that work and will your equipment eventually be included standard on Boeing planes?
Buying airplanes is much like buying a car. There is the standard airplane, and then there is the option catalogue. And so our desire is to make the authorised option catalogue. We believe ultimately the long-haul airplanes will carry the provisions for our system.

What are some of the new services you're looking to add?
Where do you go after television? In our case we are rolling out Internet, email and we know that if that is all we ever offered, it would go stale quickly. We're looking to add re-broadcast television first. We can imagine adding a voice component beyond that. People are talking about gaming and gambling in the Asian and European markets -- which could be popular, especially when packaged with vacation deals. Beyond that, it gets a little murkier, but we anticipate we will just continue to add functionalities -- shopping at some point.

The satellite connection in the planes accounts for both the uplink and the downlink?
Yes, the link to the airplane from the ground is four channels at five megabits per second (Mbps) each, so that's 20Mbps total capacity. The length from the airplane to the ground is a 1Mbps link, and again, the actual speed you will see as the consumer depends on the number of people on the airplane and where the airplanes are operating physically in the world zone.

Can you talk about how carriers can use the service to improve in-flight maintenance and how it can improve their bottom line?
Yes, in generalities. The systems that we put on airplanes today all have significant built-in test capability and generate fault codes internal to the equipment. Today the fault code will show up in the cockpit displays for the captain and will also be relayed to the ground on a system called ACARS, which is a data transmitter. What you get is the error message on the ground. There isn't much communication between the ground and the plane to solve those errors.

But with Connexion Connect we have a 5Mbps channel reserved for these kinds of applications. You can download information and query back from the maintenance operation on the ground to do component-level fault isolation. That allows you to pull a part, pull a work instruction, schedule a mechanic, and work at the arrival gate when the airplane comes in.

So it is an efficiency?
Yes. It allows you to turn that airplane more quickly. Today you have the fault code, but when the airplane lands, you plug into what we call GateLink and then you can interact with the airplane systems. If then you need a box and the box is not in San Francisco but at Portland, it takes four hours to get the component; you had to change the airplane and put another airplane in position. These are expensive assets that are most valuable when they are actively employed making money.

There is nothing that limits you to airlines. Could trains be a possibility?
There are a lot of limitations and issues to address with trains or with trucks or cars. They run through valleys and tunnels, and it is really hard to see the geostationary satellite in a lot of valleys. They often have hydropower or electrical lines directly over the top of the car, which could break up radio signals. And there are terrestrial opportunities to address in those markets that might be cheaper than going through the satellite.