Wifi in planes horrible business

Agreed about power (or lack thereof) being a large part of the reason this product didn’t work out. It’s unbelievable to me that a company with as much talent and money as Boeing was unable to work out such a small detail as that.

I understand that some problems are unforeseeable when designing a product, but that one isn’t lying too deep under the surface.

That’s quite a setback for travelers.

Hi Scob. You have reason, the problem energy for the wi-fi is one large limitation. According to you the Wi-MAX is not one possible solution? As for the mobile devices would want an energy to us alternative.

What a good idea would be WIFi devices using less power. Or else making allowances for more people to use WiFi

Hmm…

Aren’t you contradicting yourself re power?

Prohibitive for most people but the seats were sold out in both directions?

I can see a money making opportunity here, reselling access to the outlet with a power bar.

Patrick: the problem isn’t necessarily the WIFI itself. Laptops just use a lot of power and it’s hard to design one that uses less, or that has big enough batteries to last a 10 hour flight. Most people don’t buy extra batteries because most people don’t take 10 hour flights very often so the market isn’t that large.

It’s not a power issue, it’s an economic one, not enough people wanting to pay for said service, and the pricing was well out of wack. And not enough airlines seeing enough demand to justify. I knew it was in danger, the second you guys took your junket flight, if you recall my predictions. Pitching to fuzzy bloggers, long after Biz Travelers and Airlines said no…

As for power, you could get an Electrovaya PowerPad, it’s not a BIG battery, it’s a flat surface. Or coulda just got the Scribbler. But what? Even old Toshiba Tablet’s ran in 3-5 hours on Wi-Fi, you mean to tell me your Lenovo ThinkPad only gets two? Gawd, that’s as bad as your Pent III era NEC. And what about hot swapping? And what of APC’s Universal Notebook battery, with a pure 8 hour and around 4 on Wifi? All sorts of solutions here. All sorts.

Geesh, some Road Warrior geek you are.

PS – And…you running Aero?

Alex: most of those seats go to frequent fliers. But, yes, there’s a market there. Put power in every seat and charge for that.

I flew from PGH to LAX last summer on US Air. Every seat on the plane had in-seat power for laptops and other devices. I had to buy a fairly inexpensive adaptor from Targus to connect my laptop to the power source. My son and I enjoyed video games and DVDs to and from LA. Trust me, it was a great way to keep a 5 year old occupied during our vacation.

Chris, my Toshibas only got two.

I’m with Coulter here. Go with APC.

Of course, I work at APC so I carry a bit of bias

I got an old Dell X300 with the extended battery; it’s fine. But the reason all these wireles ventures are failing:

THEY CHARGE YOU THROUGH THE F-ING NOSE.

Sorry for the caps; I just needed to vent I guess.
I travel all over Europe for work and the prices hotels, airports and others dare to charge for what we all know is a low-low-cost investment is obscene.

Ah well, I really don’t need wi-fi on a plane anyway; I gots me a Nintendo DS.

What I need is a ban on the imminent irritation of in-flight cellphone calls: because that is going to cost lives. Not from technical technical malfunctions; but because I am going to have to kill the yapping idiot who needs to tell all his friends ‘I’m calling from a plane. What? No, a plane. What are you having for dinner?’. Salesmen beware: I accept your incessant yapping on the cell because I can move aware. In a closed space at high altitude I will be going straight for the jugular.

I just scanned the comments and stumbled across Robert’s “Alex: most of those seats go to frequent fliers. But, yes, there’s a market there. Put power in every seat and charge for that.”

Look, not everything is a friggin’ market. Some things are cool to offer as SERVICE. Free in-flight wireless? SERVICE. Free in-flight power: SERVICE. This will get you a loyal customer base.

Get rid of the useless flight attendants (put a drink dispenser and snack machine in the back, put on a safety instruction tape, and nobody really wants to eat the meals anyway) and use to money to provide people with some actual SERVICE instead of treating them like cattle and/or potential bomb-carriers.

Extra batteries. But I’m amazed at the new nomad roaming the airports these days – business traveler in search of a power outlet! New trival item – a screwdriver to undue those outlet covers on the floors at the gates. But try getting a srewdriver through TSA these days. I’m still holding out for cold-fusion-powered-laptops!

That begs a further question, which one? Toshiba 3500 or the M200/M400? 3500 was a royal disaster, so yes I can see that, 2 hours would actually be lucky. But that tester M200 I had got 4 easy and M400′s (and Tecra M4′s) are even better. But the power issue and lack of fuel cells, is more an issue as to why Tablets and UMPC’s haven’t caught on, over super-expensive Airline WiFi.

Um..Michiel, if you think that flight attendents are no more than high-altitude wait staff, I HIGHLY recommend you see about doing some observation of the training they get.

It will quickly disabuse you of that notion.

Chris: it was an M400. My battery only lasted more than three if I turned down the screen, turned off the hard drive, turned off Wifi, etc. But I’m a heavy computer user and don’t just do email.

John: I agree. I wouldn’t get on a plane without them.

Anyway, yeah, they charge a lot for these things. Funny, though, I am willing to pay! I’d even pay $30 for a short-range flight. But, that’s just me. Being online is worth money in my business.

PS – Your ‘SERVICES’ have to deal in ROI, Michiel. And if no demand for services, or small demand, makes no economic sense — it’s a loss, if it doesn’t help the overall bottom-line. Geesh, Biz Economics 101.

Useless flight attendants? They are far more than drink distributors. Ummm, you start a airline like that then. Insolvent in a week.

But here’s the real reasons…”power” but is a geek thing.

1. Airlines don’t see much demand. And no ROI. Unlike alotta geeks and Joi Ito copycats, the mainstream biz travelers, like time off-the-grid.
2. Pricing that is literally CRAZY. And perception that it should be free. Can anyone say limited return?
3. Cellphone use, more a demand. People use phones more than PDAs and Laptop’s. WiFi is geeky. Cellphones are everyone.

heavy computer user

Well, so am I. But something you do drinks more power than most mortals. But even the M400 had an integrated hot-swappable bay.

What’s M400 ?

News release 1:

FAA is banning laptop and batteries from carry-on luggages as an effect to fight terrorism.

Uh…….

News release 2

UAL announced DS and XBox 360 rental on its international flights.

Uh………..

More and more devices have native wi-fi; see the current crop of handheld gaming devices. I am sure music players and cell phones will follow suit. There will be more and more demand for wifi.

And all those devices require power because battery technology STILL sucks. There’s been no drastic breakthough although the future always looks bright. It’s also always just over the horizon.

Google with its free wireless services is on the right track here. There is a VERY limited business model for squeezing money out of wireless access and it will be obliterated by ubiquity.

Oh, and yes, I do see flight attendants and possibly even pilots as vestiges of a past age: kept only to keep the cattle quiet (“oh thank god, someone is in control”). Sorry if that offends or anything.

I found that Connexions was broken yesterday when I flew Lufthansa from Denver to Frankfurt. Their customer support couldn’t help.

You’re right – they are giving up on it.

The power is also a problem regardless of internet access or not. At-seat power is only available in business/first on international flights – and rarely on any plane on domestic flights.

Until there is at-seat power across the board – we’ll be doing off-line email for a few hours (I get almost 5 hours with my Thinkpad with the internal and secondary battery) – and that’s it.

There are battery solutions for devices that don’t require a $250 upgrade, like the Inflight Power Recharger Cables. Not a perfect solution but it gets there.

More to the greater point about WiFi on planes – it’s priced in a way that doesn’t make sense for normal people. The same way hotels should build in the cost of Internet into rooms and call it a “free perk” so should the airlines who provide the service charge a few bucks extra for a ticket and call it “free”. That way everyone could use it if they want to instead of making it practical only for the front row seats.

How about charging from the headphone port via USB?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/15/inflight-usb-power-unit-uses-audio-jack-to-give-you-juice/

This is an interesting development, because Connexion is not only used on planes: Boeing has been pushing it to ocean freighter companies as a way to provide communications access that is rather cheaper than the asynchronous methods used by ships at sea now. (Although Inmarsat positioning is now required, so they couldn’t shut that down.)

My company, Navarik (http://www.navarik.com) makes web-based software for those companies, mostly used onshore, but right now we have some ship-side components that send XML over asynchronous AMOS email that would be much improved by real-tim Connexion services. It would suck if that roll-out didn’t happen.

Then again, Boeing has apparently been having major reliability problems with the ship-side transceiver hardware, which doesn’t seem to have been designed for the rigours of salt water and rough weather. It’s surprisingly much gentler up there in the troposphere.