Video Conference From 5 Miles Above Greenland?
Darn! Usually Mike and I like to be first to try some wacky kludge using convergence and some wireless connection, but this time, we’ve been trumped by Tim S. (I dunno him.) We’ve heard of people testing airborne WiFi, but this is the first case I’ve seen of someone actually using it in a mission critical business role. Tim S. used his videoconference software from SightSpeed to attend a meeting in California and made a corporate presentation while in a Lufthansa flight between Europe and the US. Of course, Tim was on the Connexion by Boeing airborne WiFi hotspot. Apparently, everyone else on the flight was asleep because it looks like Tim had access to the full backhaul bandwidth! Boeing uses a satellite link with 128 to 1Mbps uplink. Kudos to Tim for having the cojones to try this in a real meeting. But this brings back a point we’ve addressed many times: if people yakking on the phone in an airplane is considered annoying, how would it be if everyone was on a video conference? BTW Tim, isn’t that a business class seat? Do you have budget approval for that?
