According to the London Times, Boeing has shut down its Connexion inflight Internet service not due of technology issues but simply because not enough people used it.
What if you offered folks an Internet connection, and no one cared? And what if you invented a new technology offering Internet access where it had never been available before, and no one was interested?
That appears to be the case with Boeing’s Connexion: according to the London Times, Boeing has finally shut down its inflight internet service, after more than six years of development. The shutdown doesn’t exactly come as a surprise—the service has never been available in the U.S., in part due to regulatory and security concerns, and usership on carriers who have supported the service (Lufthansa, SAS, Japan Airlines, El Al, and others) has not been high enough to justify continued operation.
What is surprising is that Boeing wasn’t able to find a buyer for Connexion: you’d think surely there must be a company interested in inflight Internet service. Think of all those business travelers who need to get work done! They’re a captive audience on the plane! But apparently demand for inflight Internet just hasn’t matched sky-high expectations, and Boeing wasn’t able to find a party willing to take over the service. The result will apparently be a $320 million write-off for Boeing as it shuts down service and pays early termination fees on service contracts.
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RSSAlex
However, I am not surprised that no one used it. In contrast to Boeing I do know the reason why. ;-)
When I first tried to use the service my laptop smoothly connected to the Access Point and it received an IP address via DHCP. But default route was not correctly set and DNS servers didn't seem to work. Thus, when I opened my browser I saw how it tried to connect to the login page where I could enter my credit card information. But I never reached this page, the browser failed to access any site I tried. I suppose every average business guy would have shut down his laptop at this point and would have slept instead of working.
Being a computer scientist working with network protocols I continued and kicked up a network analyzer. I learned the IP address the Access Point was trying to forward my Browser to from the HTTP stream. When I entered this adress manually, I succeded and reached the payment portal. I paid 15 bugs for 10 hours flight and from that moment the internet connection was working great.
Maybe Booing should have asked some passengers why they didn't make use of the service. If 99% answered: "because it does not work" they might have realized that something was wrong.
Before you start wondering: I the same experience on two flights (Germany->Venezuela and back) with two Laptops, one running Linux, the other one Windows XP.
Regards,
Alex