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Boeing executive Scott Carson knows a surefire way to hush annoying mobile-phone chatterers: put their phones on a jetliner and call them air phones.
Despite their ubiquity, airplane phones get used just about as often as airsickness bags. Perhaps their dismal sound quality and the steep $3-a-minute rate - that's $180 an hour - have something to do with it.
While he flies three times a week, Carson never makes a call while airborne. "The quality of service is crummy and it's too expensive," he said.
Carson is president of Boeing's Connexion, an inflight Internet and e-mail business. He knows that despite the air phones' pitiful usage, passengers still want to stay connected during flights. So Connexion has leaped into the nascent inflight Internet business with a proprietary technology that in a year or two could be widely available to passengers who want to surf the Web while flying.
But Connexion faces a well-backed competitor who's got a head start with a service that, while less advanced technologically, is available now. This rival claims to offer airlines a far less expensive and less risky way to capture some of the billions of dollars passengers are expected to eventually spend staying online while on-board.
What is this company? Seattle-based Tenzing Communications - backed by its new 30 percent owner, Airbus.
At the Paris Air Show this week, both Boeing and Tenzing announced that they had signed more customer airlines for their inflight connection services. Boeing said the German carrier Lufthansa has signed a memorandum of understanding to install Connexion on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet for a three-month pilot test.
Lufthansa joins three high-powered U.S. airlines - United, American and Delta, which have formed a joint venture with Boeing - in opting for Connexion's broadband satellite-linked system.
But while Connexion will take a year or more just to start appearing on a limited number of aircraft, Tenzing is moving faster. Four major international carriers, including Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, have signed on to install Tenzing's system in their entire fleet. Tenzing says Air Canada has agreed to offer its inflight e-mail and Web service on all aircraft while Brazil's Varig, the largest carrier in Latin America, will install the system on its new Boeing 777s.
Most passengers would get online by using their laptops on battery power such as IBM FRU 92P1121 Battery. But the Connexion and Tenzing systems differ in two fundamental ways. Tenzing is using existing technology, which will mean slower and more limited Web and e-mail access. Passengers could wait up to 15 minutes to retrieve e-mail and would have access only to a pre-selected group of Web sites and their links.
Boeing is waiting for technology enabling real-time access to unlimited Web sites.
While the final decision would be up to the airlines, Tenzing believes that passengers would prefer to pay based on the size of the e-mail files they retrieve, rather than paying an hourly connection fee like Boeing has proposed. is tentatively proposing. Tenzing has discussed a flat $4.95 fee to log on, plus additional fees for reading e-mails. Surfing the pre-selected Web sites would not cost extra.
Tenzing anticipates that 10 to 15 passengers on a flight with 200 people would use the service. Boeing's estimate is 20 people.
Peter Lemme, Tenzing's vice president of business development and technology, said in Paris that Boeing is taking a huge gamble by leaping straight into the more expensive broadband service without first ascertaining how many travelers will log on. Tenzing is planning to switch to broadband as well, but Lemme contends Tenzing will be more measured than Boeing about making the move.
"I think it's all or nothing for them," Lemme said. "The market has to emerge in a big way to justify" Boeing and the airlines' investments.
Carson said he likes to think that Tenzing is simply warming up the market until Connexion makes its entry.
Carson said he is certain that inflight e-mail and Web service will avoid air phones' fate because it will be affordable, reliable and widely available. Boeing and Tenzing also know they have to avoid some basic pitfalls that kept people from using the air phones, such as requiring them to swipe their credit cards before making a call.
Carson, who previously was chief financial officer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said Boeing has done thorough market analysis with Connexion.
In looking at the data, "everything says it will be successful," Carson said.
Boeing executive Scott Carson knows a surefire way to hush annoying mobile-phone chatterers: put their phones on a jetliner and call them air phones.
Despite their ubiquity, airplane phones get used just about as often as airsickness bags. Perhaps their dismal sound quality and the steep $3-a-minute rate - that's $180 an hour - have something to do with it.
While he flies three times a week, Carson never makes a call while airborne. "The quality of service is crummy and it's too expensive," he said.
Carson is president of Boeing's Connexion, an inflight Internet and e-mail business. He knows that despite the air phones' pitiful usage, passengers still want to stay connected during flights. So Connexion has leaped into the nascent inflight Internet business with a proprietary technology that in a year or two could be widely available to passengers who want to surf the Web while flying.
But Connexion faces a well-backed competitor who's got a head start with a service that, while less advanced technologically, is available now. This rival claims to offer airlines a far less expensive and less risky way to capture some of the billions of dollars passengers are expected to eventually spend staying online while on-board.
What is this company? Seattle-based Tenzing Communications - backed by its new 30 percent owner, Airbus.
At the Paris Air Show this week, both Boeing and Tenzing announced that they had signed more customer airlines for their inflight connection services. Boeing said the German carrier Lufthansa has signed a memorandum of understanding to install Connexion on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet for a three-month pilot test.
Lufthansa joins three high-powered U.S. airlines - United, American and Delta, which have formed a joint venture with Boeing - in opting for Connexion's broadband satellite-linked system.
But while Connexion will take a year or more just to start appearing on a limited number of aircraft, Tenzing is moving faster. Four major international carriers, including Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, have signed on to install Tenzing's system in their entire fleet. Tenzing says Air Canada has agreed to offer its inflight e-mail and Web service on all aircraft while Brazil's Varig, the largest carrier in Latin America, will install the system on its new Boeing 777s.
Most passengers would get online by using their laptops on battery power such as IBM FRU 92P1121 Battery. But the Connexion and Tenzing systems differ in two fundamental ways. Tenzing is using existing technology, which will mean slower and more limited Web and e-mail access. Passengers could wait up to 15 minutes to retrieve e-mail and would have access only to a pre-selected group of Web sites and their links.
Boeing is waiting for technology enabling real-time access to unlimited Web sites.
While the final decision would be up to the airlines, Tenzing believes that passengers would prefer to pay based on the size of the e-mail files they retrieve, rather than paying an hourly connection fee like Boeing has proposed. is tentatively proposing. Tenzing has discussed a flat $4.95 fee to log on, plus additional fees for reading e-mails. Surfing the pre-selected Web sites would not cost extra.
Tenzing anticipates that 10 to 15 passengers on a flight with 200 people would use the service. Boeing's estimate is 20 people.
Peter Lemme, Tenzing's vice president of business development and technology, said in Paris that Boeing is taking a huge gamble by leaping straight into the more expensive broadband service without first ascertaining how many travelers will log on. Tenzing is planning to switch to broadband as well, but Lemme contends Tenzing will be more measured than Boeing about making the move.
"I think it's all or nothing for them," Lemme said. "The market has to emerge in a big way to justify" Boeing and the airlines' investments.
Carson said he likes to think that Tenzing is simply warming up the market until Connexion makes its entry.
Carson said he is certain that inflight e-mail and Web service will avoid air phones' fate because it will be affordable, reliable and widely available. Boeing and Tenzing also know they have to avoid some basic pitfalls that kept people from using the air phones, such as requiring them to swipe their credit cards before making a call.
Carson, who previously was chief financial officer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said Boeing has done thorough market analysis with Connexion.
In looking at the data, "everything says it will be successful," Carson said.
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