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The original Connexion by Boeing 737 tester: Wikipedia Commons
If there is a between-the-lines reading to be made of an important US conference on in-flight connectivity this month, it is that that the airlines are keen to identify bandwidth hogs, such as file sharing and streaming video users, and empty their wallets while they are seated in their jets.
As distinct from ordinary schmucks like the writer, who just wants to use WordPress, battle the email in-box, keeps tabs on news sites, and chase up the inevitable missing photos or graphics that should have been saved to the Plane Talking library when they first appeared.
We can look forward to a lesser exercise in passive revenue collection, …. in our dreams.
However at the moment in-flight internet systems don’t distinguish between light users and heavy users, who pay the same block sum for bandwidth. The problem isn’t so much the price, but the distortion to service quality caused by heavy users whose internet needs drain the available bandwidth onboard and can frustrate good download speeds for any user.
If the airlines and their service providers can isolate the allocations available to lighter users from heavy users, and price discrimination would be the means of doing this, they could satisfy both types of demand and encourage more of both to use the internet in-flight.
Given the failure of all of the turn of the century predictions for massive revenue streams from in-flight connectivity, culminating in the collapse of the Connexion by Boeing service, which was very good at what it did, and is much missed, some airlines must be keen on the idea of making more from web browsing muppets than muffins.
But as ancillary sources of revenues goes, muffins only require a hot tray to give off the aroma that makes passengers reach for their small change, if there is any wriggle room to be found in say a Jetstar seat.
Selling us our internet addictions in flight means an investment in extra hardware per jet, and tricky decisions as to how the risk is shared by the internet service provider, the satellite or land link company, the payment processor, and so forth.
None of which comes with the simplicity of operations which is supposed to underpin low fare carriers or even the more efficient full service carriers.
One puzzling omission from the discussion as reported in Avionics Today is billing simplicity. Most readers would on reported market research in Australia use a single service provider where possible for all their data needs, whether voice, text, email, web and gaming. Or maps, when lost, unless it is Apple Maps, which is why you are lost.
Whatever Qantas, Virgin Australia, Jetstar and Tiger might do with such an ancillary charge service, surely it needs to be accessed via our existing service provider accounts, not something separate. Even if you use prepaid mobile broadband, like the writer, the goal would be that as you walk on board your flight, your coverage continues uninterrupted, even though the rate at which you are being charged goes up.
By as little as possible, of course.
