Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Cathay Pacific and Tenzing demonstrate first high speed network

just saw this press release from CX:

Cathay Pacific and Tenzing demonstrate first high speed network (http://www.cathaypacific.com/aboutus/press/0,,1342-12059,00.html)

and some details from appledaily today...
you can do emails and browse 20+ Web sites (news, sports, entertainment) in the beginning, 50+ sites by the end of the year need a laptop with an USB connection if flying economy, need to advise agent if you want to use the service (apparently because this is only available in selected rows in economy) will be available on airbus first, to be rolled out to the whole fleet by 2003 free for the year 2001; starting from next year there's a charge of US$10 per flight, and US$1 for each email sent/received only English sites and emails for now; Chinese and other languages to be introduced starting next year

[This message has been edited by tedhl (edited 06-08-2001).]

any idea on the roll-out? eg routes and plane type?
i never got into studio^cx
thought they dont exist http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I have a sneaky suspicion that when CX makes an announcement regarding service enhancements, they try to maximize on the PR potential while at the same time minimize on the upfront expenditure.

For instance, two (maybe even three?) years ago as soon as they had one 747-400 equipped with the Betsy seat, they made huge announcements in the media about this "state-of-the-art" in inflight comfort. But it took them over 2 years to finally make this a full reality across all of their long-haul 747s.

Similarly, the first A340 to be equipped with the Betsy seats was last year. Once again they made a huge splash of this. A year later, there is still only one of these aircraft that is so equipped.

I suspect the same thing with this high-speed inflight email access. They'll fork over the money to equip one aircraft and will probably take them 2-3 years to finally realize their claim.

I've heard their explanation about how long it takes to de-commission a plane for retrofitting Just note that AA implemented its "More Room Throughout Coach" program in one year with many more aircraft in its fleet.

Oh well... just spouting some cynicism here, a healthy dose, I hope.

I'm more curious about the technology behind the scene. They claim 11Mbps, and that's pretty fast. I don't think even the broadband in HK reaches that speed. They have lot of work to do, well, good luck. Maybe it DOES take another few years before this service is readily available to all routes. By saying first available to airbus, would it be the new 340 used on HKG-JFK route with new F class? (if so, tedhl, enjoy the flight http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif)

Studio is quite common I thought. 3 flights in April-May, 3 of them had it. maybe I'm just lucky....

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by fakecd:
They claim 11Mbps, and that's pretty fast. I don't think even the broadband in HK reaches that speed.</font>

something off topic, but the hutchison broadband I am using is 10 Mbps both up/downstream, not quite 11 Mbps, but close enough... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif in chinese - http://www.hkultraline.com/html/info_compare_resbb_1.html