iChat from 30,000 feet
David Schloss
February 19, 2003 12:00 am ET
Here's a riddle. What's more than thirty thousand feet in the air,
moving at hundreds of miles an hour, eating a gourmet meal,
drinking a glass of Riesling, and is downloading files to his
PowerBook at more than 50k/sec?
If you guessed me, you're right.
With the pervasiveness of the Internet these days, there's almost
nothing more frustrating than spending a long flight without
connectivity. Held captive in a flying cigar tube for hours at a
time (in many cases far longer than one would spend at their desk
during a work day) it's all a business traveler can do to draft a
few emails, and maybe polish a presentation. And what if you forget
to download the latest financial data off the company's VPN, or
read that last-minute email from the boss canceling the meeting in
Berlin.
Relief is in sight thanks to a pilot program that is part of a
joint venture between Boeing, Hughes and Lufthansa called FlyNet.
Other air carriers will also work with the Boeing and Hughes
venture called "Connection By Boeing" but will have different names
for their in-air service.
I was invited aboard Lufthansa's flight 419 from Washington DC to
Frankfurt to experience what is bound to be the biggest revolution
in air travel since the invention of the single serving liquor
bottle. Flight 419 -- and its inbound sister flight from Frankfurt,
418 -- are the first to feature broadband Internet access for the
duration of the flight.
This experimental project, which is scheduled to run until April,
utilizes a network of Ethernet jacks at each seat in business class
(along with a 110V power supply in the armrest), and a Wi-Fi
connection throughout the plane. Currently the FAA has only
approved the Wi-Fi cards installed in the loaner laptops that
Lufthansa is providing business class customers for the flight, but
when the experiment becomes a reality any Wi-Fi equipped laptop
should be able to access the Internet.
I decide to spend the flight working on my own laptop -- a new 12"
PowerBook -- and forgo the wireless connection rather than use the
loaner Windows machine. Before we take off though I turn on my
airport and check out the signal, which is strong and clear all
over the enormous 747 aircraft. The access points lock out any
Wi-Fi card that doesn't have a registered MAC address, so it's
impossible to even log on with an unapproved card.
The service is activated about thirty minutes into the flight, so I
plug in my PowerBook, and I'm suddenly online. Well not exactly
suddenly. The connection to the Internet is made by a proxy server,
and requires leaving a pop-up window open. But I'm running Safari
with popup blocking enabled, and at first I can't get online.
Once I resolve that, I sign onto iChat (and if you're reading this
during my return flight on February 18, you can look for me online
at the AIM address "davidinair" starting about an hour after my
1300 departure. That's 7:00 am EST.) and confirm that I'm online. I
kick open a connection and start downloading some updates, pulling
consistent 50k/sec connections from Apple and some other high speed
servers.
There's a slight lag between hitting a page and getting a response,
although that's not really surprising since my connection is
traveling through the floor (and three miles of cabling) to an
onboard Linux server, which in turn is routing my request to a
Hughes satellite orbiting above the earth. And that is getting its
connection from terra firma, spinning below me.
And then I'm surfing websites, checking email, transferring files,
updating my iCal calendars -- basically I'm doing everything I
would while on the ground, just higher up.
The connection only encounters two blackout spots as communications
are handed over between satellites, but neither time is it more
than five minutes.
It is, I must say, a bit unnerving to be Imming your loved ones
during turbulence. I'm pretty sure I upset my wife after I write
"aargh. Bummphy fleigfht, canyt typed" or something to that effect,
which is the best I can manage as I am jostled about the cabin.
Still the connection runs smoothly despite the rough air, and it is
a bit reassuring to know that we aren't moving around so much that
we lost contact with the satellite. I spent a good eight hours
online but it's impossible for me to tell. I was so lost in
chatting and watching QuickTime trailers that I forgot to be
annoyed by the length of the flight.
All throughout the airplane flight attendants and passengers
mingled with laptops in hand, surfing from all over the plane. I
remember my first flight to Europe years ago where everyone stood
around smoking cigarettes instead.
It might be a bit premature to start booking your travel (unless
it's for flight 419, which will only have the service until April)
if you're looking for broadband. Lufthansa, who is way ahead of
other carriers in the roll out process, won't begin to equip their
fleet until the beginning of 2004. The process of transitioning the
fleet won't be completed until 2005.
There's no reason other domestic or international carriers couldn't
roll out a similar service, in fact Lufthansa is encouraging other
partners. Each new partner lowers the overall cost of deployment
for the satellite services, making it more affordable to those
involved.
British Airways will be the next carrier to experiment with the
service, and will reportedly be using the in-plane setup developed
by Lufthansa.
Connectivity won't come without a price, albeit a rather modest
one. Lufthansa executives estimate the service will roll out for
something around $35.00. At that rate the airlines are likely to
rake it in hand over fist.
Airport Extreme, indeed.
Just an email away......
Justin
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