Not So Fast On Inflight Web Surfing
from the long-way-to-go dept
There has been a lot of talk recently about being able to surf the web and check email from an airplane. However, it might not be coming to the US anytime soon. First of all, no US airlines have agreed to deploy it. More importantly, however, the FAA hasn’t approved it, and might not for a long time. The article also explains that one company is hoping to use 802.11b on airplanes for access. This would be cool (if it worked) because so many people already have the cards, and it would be easy to use. However, if the FAA is already worried about two-way pagers and cell phones, I don’t think they’re going to be too excited about jumping on the bandwagon of using 802.11b’s wireless LAN standard.
Comments on “Not So Fast On Inflight Web Surfing”
Odd...
Maybe it’s just me, but nearly every plane I’ve been on in the past two years has had small screens in the seatbacks which allowed you to check your email for an exorbitant amount of money (and at about 300bps). Pretty lame, but it does exist….
Safe-ish
802.11b is cleared for use in Hospitals so I see no reason why it wont work safely on planes. Mobiles are entirely another matter.