January 26, 2007 – RUMOURS of mounting problems for the 787 schedule have gained fresh credence with the news that wireless IFE – intended to facilitate easy cabin reconfiguration – has been sacrificed on the altar of weight savings.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Boeing began notifying customers last week that it had decided to move away from the wireless IFE solutions being developed by Panasonic and Thales, citing concerns about the IEEE 802.11n-based technology wasn’t going to work as well as initially believed.

Boeing claims the biggest worries focused on bandwidth performance and indications that some countries were unwilling to grant regulatory approval for the use of WiFi frequencies in their national airspace. There were also concerns that the 802.11n specification would not be finalised in time to make it a sure bet for an aircraft due to enter commercial service in mid-2008. “We had been tracking a number of risks relative to wireless IFE, and two of them started taking turns for the worse,” said Mike Sinnett, director of 787 systems.

The airframer also put the finger on the extra weight of a wireless system, saying that each seat row would have needed a one-pound antenna, while 23 wireless access points weighing two pounds would have been installed on beefed-up ceiling panels, for a total system weight 150lb greater than that of a wired system.

Given Boeing’s earlier acknowledgement of problems with weight on the 787 - chief executive Jim McNerney described it as “a dogged issue” at the end of last year - it would seem that this is the more likely reason for the decision to drop wireless and that the talk of 802.11n problems could be something of a smokescreen.

At the end of last year Thales Inflight Systems general manager Brad Foreman said: “Right now the 802.11n schedule is keeping pace with development of our i-8000 system. It’s not causing us any difficulties because the things still to be finalised in the fully signed-off spec have more to do with details than anything significant. We have completed testing on aircraft and we’re confident we can guarantee to the airlines that the picture quality in the seatback displays will be equivalent to that of a wired system.”

It is also hard to see lack of national frequency allocations as a sound reason for dropping wireless. IFE systems are not switched on until the aircraft is well established in the cruise, which on a trans-oceanic type like the 787 would usually see it well clear of national airspace. Moreover, Boeing says that the USA is not one of the countries withholding a frequency allocation, eliminating any possibility of an end-of-flight problem for airlines operating into the USA from the Pacific and Atlantic.

Boeing is now doing its best to minimise the effects of the decision, even asserting that the cabin reconfiguration goal would not be significantly compromised. 787 systems director Mike Sinnett said that Boeing would still deliver on its promise to build the aircraft so that airlines could reconfigure without significant rewiring: “The wires now will be routed through the seat tracks on the airplane’s floor, still making it possible for carriers to move seats around without tearing apart the airplane.” He did not explain how this would represent any major advance on existing methods of installing IFE.

Meantime, at least one of the IFE suppliers is phlegmatic about the retreat from wireless. Thales Avionics is reported to be facing minimal changes to the hardware it is developing for the 787, which is closely based on the proven i-5000 system.