The End?

I am sitting on a plane and blogging it what appears to be the last day or days this will be possible to do.

On Aug 17 Boeing announced ( http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q3/060817a_nr.html ) they will shutting down their internet in the air service company called Connexion and writing off $320Million.

Several airlines had installed these systems in their fleets, JAL, Korean, Lufthansa, SAS, ANA, Etihad, El-Al, Asiana and Singapore Air all at an approximate one time cost of $500,000 per plane and a running cost of flying with equipment that weighs like four people.

It is odd to see this company close and the service disappear. Especially now when the Internet is main stream and many use it for basic communication. I could understand Boeing for closing this or maybe even for not succeeding as they are not a telecom service company, but , shocked not a single provider has decided to buy this out.

To add to my confusion ever since Ericsson released their airline enabled GSM service and had the Norwegian NPT agree on usage and test, more and more airlines are gearing up to enabling usage of GSM cell phones during flight. There are even roaming auctions on the way.

This feels very much like buying DSL hardware stocks in 2000, you knew everyone will have DSL at home and these hardware manufacturers will hardly manage to supply the demand, yet the stock failed and till today haven't recovered.

am I missing out on something?