It always amazes me that business so often take short term views of bussiness opportunities then re-enter them down the track often at a far greater cost.
One would hope that the people who did this analysis of the business (and no doubt were being paid good money) didnt look at three simply issues.
1. Pricing- if it is too expensive (like inflight phones) then no one will use it.
2.Did it work as often and fast as it was supposed to.
3.Maybe having it available on every flight on every airline then maybe take up rate would be better. I wouldnt have bought a mobile phone for example if it was only in one city of every 10 I visited.
Given Boeing was using base stations of various networks in the countries it flew over it could have expanded the service onto the ground. Then sold cards allowing people to access the internet worldwide and competed with separate hotel based and country networks. Voila a worldwide network avaialbale to all including business men who would no longer have to connect/pay varius networks in the different countries they visited. And at a price that would make the take up by the 'common man' not only desirable but ultimately profitable.
But off course they would have thought all about that rather than just next years profit.