Scott Hanselman

Flying from Frankfurt to Germany? :)

I've no idea why it failed Scott, take up, or lack or may have been one reason.
I also read that it cost $100k per plane to install, which sounds crazy but that's likely to have hampered roll out. And if its true, who the hell was skimming off the top, and middle, of that deal?!

Connection cost would likely be expensed in most cases no?

Either way it's a damn shame, I think Boeing took a big step backwards discontinuing the service.

Pinging SatCom is not a sign of slow connection as the packets are bigger but in a big latency enviorement.
BTW I cannot believe you were going in Coach!
I was born in Barcelona, love that city, did you got your wallet stolen there?

Connexion was doomed because not enough airlines signed up for it to justify its cost.
The cost of installing it in an airplane, adding weight to the plane and other costs were too high.

Some airlines are also paranoid about installing third party electronic equipment thus increasing the likelihood of something going badly wrong. Remember the Swiss Air disaster a few years ago? Faulty onboard video equipment shorting causing a fire in the cockpit.

Cell technology for modem use, ok. For chatting, PLEASE NO.

Abdu - thats the reason I think cell technology won't work, or won't be adopted. Too many people worried about voice calls (count me firmly in that camp)

I like the idea of a 'cell bubble' in the larger planes ,but then you get into issues of large groups gathering which the airlines seems to dislike these days.
Perhaps this will be easier in the double-decker airbus (if it ever arrives) where they could have room to put a cell-phone lounge in.
I'm just not sure I want to pay the fees and still get crappy cell-phone download speeds.

Also, I still can't figure out why connexion was so expensive to install/sign up for. Were they using custom satellites or piggy backing commercial ones?
I somewhat understand the wiring risk, but you really think that could be a problem? A couple of routers and some cat5, or a single router with a leaky feed (some hotels use this in the elevator shaft). I just can't believe that kind of setup poses a large amount of risk and can be *that* expensive to install.

Weight wise it shouldn't be more than a few pounds plus whatever the satellite receive/send box weighs (which I have no idea about tbh).

It just sounded like they wanted to make all their money on the install side rather than the use side. But then justify the cost of use with the high install price! I suspect if they'd kept the cost low, and got a bigger rollout they'd have seen more use and possibly still be around.

I traveled on a Lufthansa flight couple of times 2-3 months ago, and they announced the service each time, but when I got my laptop out, the air hostess told me that it is not working. That was a shame really. It would have been cool to be able to surf the net in the sky.

Scott,
I am reading your blog sitting in Row 24 from Frankfurt on LH.
BTW my connectivity is strong, stable and fast.