Connectivity

Connexion by Boeing is long dead. Now SITA and Airbus are trying a similar venture - Called OnAir - to allow passengers Internet access and - unfortunately - mobile phone access while en route to their destination.

Personally, I love to have Internet access on a long haul flight. But mobile phones? Please. I can’t imagine that a hundred stupid passengers calling their relatives would make for a relaxing flight. They’d have meaningful conversations like:

“We are on our way to Thailand!” (Yes, well, so you are one of a million, who gives a damn?)

“Yeah we are now over the ocean!” (And have been for an hour you baffoon…)

“Oh the food is terrible!” (Now there’s news…)

“This plane is really full, and we don’t have much room for our feet!” (Tell me about it…)

“Susy sends her regards!” (Can’t she just write a postcard instead of annoying me?)

Lufthansa have got it right. They’ve recognized that most (intelligent?) passengers would rather have their peace and quiet, and won’t allow mobile phones to be used on their flights.

After announcement of the planned shut-down of Connexion there is some bright news for us geeks who would not want to be cut off from the rest of the world while vacationing.

Lufthansa Systems will install internet- and entertainment systems on AIDA cruise ships, the company announced in a press release.

The system will provide passengers with Internet access from their cabins, which will also offer travel information and the opportunity to book excursions. The entertainment system will offer radio, tv, and on-demand movies and audio. The entire system will use satellite based connections.

The technology was originally developed for the FlyNet platform, which provided wireless Internet service on board of Lufthansa planes. LH Systems is partnering with Tomorrow Focus AG for the content, and with Meyer Werft for the hardware.

Connexion, Boeing’s in-flight internet service, is closing down due to lack of customers. The service will be phased out over time, and Boeing will work with customers to find alternate solutions. I had tested Connexion on a flight to Detroit. It was useable, but frustratingly slow. Still, the technology is cool, and having Internet on board of airplanes is something I wouldn’t want to miss. It’s hard to imagine that this technology might go the way of in-flight phones (which nobody ever really uses). Surely, someone will pick up the torch. We’ll see.

Have you used Connexion? What were your impressions? Should Boeing kill off the service or would you use a similar service in the future? Tell us your opinion!

I was just checking my site statistics, and I found that someone using Connexion by Boeing had accessed this website in June. That wasn’t me, of course. So I was very curious how someone might have found me from up in the air.

It turns out the person was googling for LH422. Presumably he or she was on the way to Detroit and googled for the plane he was in.

I’ll salute you, Sir, whoever you are! That was a truely Geeky thing to do - Hats off.

The BBC reports that the French will turn Mont Saint-Michel back into an island. In the past the abbey was more than four kilometers from the coast; nowadays it’s only a few meters. The work is scheduled to be complete in 2012.

Mont Saint-Michel is pretty cool, I presume I was one of the first people ever to check their email wirelessly on the top of the abbey back in 2000 with my mobile phone and my Palm Pilot.

Just don’t go there with a stressed-out girlfriend. ;)

I am pleased to announce that my departure went without a hitch. I am currently about half-way to Detroit, blogging at 11500 meters above the Atlantic Ocean. I am connected via Lufthansa’s on-board Internet plan. It’s 27 US$ for the entire flight, but of course I just had to give it a try. It does work fairly well, but as expected it’s pretty slow. There are also disconnections now and then. It’s easy to set up (you really don’t have to configure much except disable your proxy settings, and set your notebook to use the Connexion WLAN) and well documented via the Lufthansa on-board magazine.

I don’t think anything gets filtered out. I am ssh’ing to my private servers without problems, so you could always tunnel whatever you want to access. Since anybody on the plane can listen in on what you’re doing, and since the connectivity is run by Boeing and thus routed via Seattle, using some form of encryption (vpn, ssh, whatever) is a very good idea. I’m still blogging directly though - but I’ll have to look into setting up an SSL host for this sort of thing.

Unless you’re on a budget, it’s pretty neat to have Internet on board an airplane. I think I am getting used to it pretty quickly… hopefully, other airlines will offer comparable solutions.

Finally, as an aside: If you book Business Class, you even get a power socket for your notebook. This isn’t available in Economy, however.