Boeing Eyes In-Flight Live TV on Your Laptop 205
cobravenum2 writes "Boeing is planning to add live television to its Connexion by Boeing service during 2005, The television programs will be delivered across the Connexion network, which uses satellites to provide high-speed data connections between aircraft in-flight and ground stations linked to the Internet. The service entered commercial use earlier this year and provides a 5 megabits per second shared downstream and 1 mbps shared upstream connection to suitably equipped aircraft. You'll be able to view up to four channels of live TV over your laptop."
Limitations (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, does anyone really need live TV via their laptop - it would seem using installed lcd displays is a whole lot easier.
Re:What about Over-Ocean Flights? (Score:5, Informative)
Plane <--> Satellite <--> Ground station
Re:What about 120v ac? (Score:3, Informative)
Inverter will either plug direct into the plane's +12vDC socket, or use an adapter (about $10) to get a standard +12vDC car-style socket from the plane's socket.
SONG already has this - and more... (Score:5, Informative)
Sovereignty... (Score:2, Informative)
Why Bother? JetBlue has TV. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uhoh? I can see the rental charges now (Score:4, Informative)
American sells you a headset for $5, and encourages you to reuse it on your next flight. It was $2 last month, and $1 in March. Their seats have the same adapter as most personal stereos, and they allow you to bring your own.
Re:2 Things (Score:3, Informative)
This is not a new idea... (Score:3, Informative)
It was pretty amazing stuff. For the antenna, they had a rectangular slab about five feet by three that contained the electronic equivalent of hundreds of individual "dish" antennas in a phased array. The idea was to give each seat the equivalent of its own dish so that each passenger could be watching a different channel.
This monstrosity was designed to be mounted on the top of the fuselage, about mid-body. It was aimed electronically, based on latitude/longitude info gathered from the ADIRU (Air Data Inertial Reference Unit), a 'black box' that contained (among other things) an inertial navigation computer.
The idea was to have a six-inch LCD active-matrix panel in each seat back, with the audio piped over one of the existing channels in the aircraft's audio entertainment system.
The entire system was a marvel of engineering, and I consider myself fortunate enough to have watched the prototype undergoing testing. Unfortunately, I don't think it ever made it into production -- the costs were just too high.
Now, though, perhaps the idea will be revived...?
Keep the peace(es).