Boeing Co. has announced that it has cancelled wireless network plans for in-flight entertainment on its 787 "Dreamliner" airplane (planned for August 2007). A wireless network would add 200 pounds per plane as opposed to the 50 pounds needed for a wired network. Another obstacle was countries not giving Boeing permission to use certain wireless frequencies. Boeing would have worked on the weight problem, but decided against it because of the spectrum issue: "Knowing that the regulatory issues were basically insurmountable, it just did not make sense to apply those resources there," a spokeswoman named Lori Gunter said. She declined to say which countries were unwilling to approve the use of the frequencies, although she slipped that the U.S. was not among them. She also declined to say how much the company had spent on the wireless network, but denied it being wasted as the research and development can serve the wired network which is being supplied by Panasonic and Thales Group.
News source: ComputerWorld
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