The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T Digital Media, a unit of AT&T Broadband will be providing the "ground segment" of the Connexion service (ground-to-satellite / satellite-to-ground communications.) I'll speculate that AT&T Broadband was chosen because it does have considerable expertise in satellite communication (the source of programming to its various cable television systems) and that it's in a good position to source the premium content that Boeing will be relying on heavily for sufficient revenue for the Connexion service to be a success. It's encouraging that Boeing chose to outsource this portion of the system rather than trying to do it themselves as Boeing hasn't exhibited much success at such "soft" industries as providing content (an earlier satellite content / data venture called DigitalXpress wasn't much of a success). But, hope (and hope for higher-margin profit from services) spring eternal as Boeing has begun a new satellite-based content venture - Boeing Digital Cinema. BDS will deliver first-run movies digitally to theatres with no degradation such as occurs with film after a few showings. The system was first used widely to digitally distribute Star Wars Episode II to selected theatres throughout the US. Perhaps there will be some synergy possible between Connexion and Digital Cinema to allow first run movies to be shown on planes.
Steve Stroh
Copyright © 2004 by Steve Stroh. This article originally appeared on my original Broadband Wireless Internet Access Weblog hosted on Radio Userland.
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