On-board and on-line

1. Businessmen will no longer have the luxury of escaping from their office by

flying off on a trip. The airlines are going to bring their office to them in seat 3A,

and those e-mails are going to have to be answered, like it or not. Such is the coming

revolution in onboard flying. A recent poll of 3,000 frequent travellers reported that

60% use a laptop in flight. The 100 million e-mail messages per day today will grow

to five billion by 2005, according to Forrester Research, and the number of people

online today will triple. The bottom line is that people want e-mail and Internet in

flight, and the airlines that provide it seem set to retain their business.

2. Past efforts at online onboard services have involved problems like laptop lockup,

slow connections, limited coverage, high access charges, poor message security,

unfamiliar user interfaces and too few access channels.

3. New technologies are becoming available, including higher bandwidth and better

connection protocols. Sending e-mails from aircraft cabins will become

commonplace. Meanwhile, suppliers are jostling for position in what they perceive

as a huge potential market.

4. One might make a guess that the market will be bigger than current satcom

services, which suffer from the "night" syndrome — there are limited times when

one can call business partners, usually during daylight hours, while e-mails and

Internet are not time sensitive. Currently satcom services account for around $10

million a year in revenues. Bets are that onboard e-mail and Internet services will far

exceed that figure.

5. No single supplier can provide the complete solution by themselves. A group of

companies will be needed to provide a complete and seamless solution. Over the past

six months, a number of joint ventures have been gelling among satellite

manufacturers and operators, airborne radio/avionics companies, broadcasters and

programmers, and airlines.

6. There are two main thrusts in this activity: relaying broadcast entertainment

material to aircraft in flight; and providing a route "to the seat" for Internet traffic.

They do not of course have to be delivered and shown in real time. For Internet

traffic, the assumption has to be that every passenger seat will eventually be capable

of generating an individual data stream. But e-mails and Web pages can always be

batched and distributed later by the onboard server. Traffic will be distributed to

seats via the existing in-flight entertainment (IFE) system wiring, by pulsed infra-red

(Bluetooth technology) or even by (very) local loop wireless. Both constitute

services that are readily available on the ground. The only new thing is their

provision for aircraft.

7. The two services can exist alone, and in some cases already do so. "Connexions

by Boeing" Internet service is already available to business aircraft, at least in US

airspace, said Boeing at the Famborough Air Show at end-July.

Task 1. Topics for discussing.

1. Is flying off on a trip a grief for businessman?

2. Why to worry about businessmen contacts with their offices while they have their

laptops with them?

3. Is there any reason for suppliers to jostle for position in providing airlines with

new connection?

4. How could you explain the phenomenon of “night” syndrome?

5. Can any single supplier provide the solution of the problem? Are there any

examples when such work was accomplished a single supplier?

6. Translate the blocks 6-7 in writing.

Task 2. Translate the blocks 6-7 in writing.

Task 3. Retell the text in your own words.

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