Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> writes:
Duh. Did you ever read the numbers for Connexion? They managed to design a system which cost the airlines up to $1mil per plane to install, and only generated $80k/yr/plane total revenue (thats Boeing revenue not airline revenue). They had an opex of something like $150mil/yr on total revenue of $11mil/yr.
Now this is interesting. $80k/year, $25 a shot = 3200 users per aircraft per year. Assume long-haul aircraft that daily average two flights per day, 320 days per year (to keep it easy), that means the average number of users on a flight is... 5. Someone's marketing department was asleep at the switch, I think.
Obviously there is no such thing as an FAA certified $50 Linksys WRT54G, but it never fails to amaze me how people are utterly shocked when reality catches up with their wild, unchecked, and stupid spending. :)
My recollection is that they were using fairly off the shelf stuff though, 3548s and Aironet 1200s if memory serves. It's poking holes in the fuselage for the antenna, and the satellite antenna itself, that costs the big bucks. ---rob