Coffee, Tea or Wi-Fi TV?
Entrepreneurs are coming up with lots of new ways to sell you video these days, and the latest is through your laptop in airports. San Francisco International is planning to hawk TV programs and movies to travelers with laptops, and deliver them over its in-house Wi-Fi network.
The new service will offer passengers live TV as well as archived shows. Travelers should also be able to download films to laptops for later in-flight viewing — if licensing deals can be hashed out.
“The hope is (to launch in) the first half of 2006 but it is more likely to be the summer/fall time frame,” said John Payne, the airport’s chief information officer.
The service will be much like watching TV at home, Payne said. There will be a wide range of TV channels available for full-screen viewing, and viewers will be able to pause and rewind shows — just like with a digital video recorder.
The airport has teamed with IP Video Systems on special features, so one passenger can watch a show she or he missed earlier in the week, while another watches live TV — and both can pause and restart their programs as needed.