Communications systems for aircraft
First Claim
1. A system for transmitting electronic data between a computer terminal on an aircraft and a terrestrial base station, the system comprising:
- a telephone network at least partially secured to the aircraft for providing telephone service to aircraft passengers;
a server mounted upon or within the aircraft and coupled to the telephone network for communicating with the computer terminal over the telephone network, wherein the terminal is disposed remotely from the server and is coupled to the telephone network; and
a terrestrial base station for selectively communicating with the server to allow the data to be passed between the base station and the terminal over the telephone network.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system for permitting passengers on board an aircraft to send and receive electronic data is described. The components of the system on board the aircraft include a server having a plurality of nodes to which computer terminals are attached, as desired. The computer terminals are laptop or palm-top personal computers belonging to the various passengers on board or fixed terminals within the aircraft. The server communicates with a wide variety of different terminals running different operating systems. Each computer terminal is connected to the server via an aircraft network. Server has mass storage which contains a database of WWW pages which can be browsed by passengers using terminals. Server provides a domain name server (DNS) that masquerades as the passenger'"'"'s usual DNS. Server then links the passenger to the appropriate locally stored WWW page. Server also contains storage for e-mail messages. Connected to server is one or more radios. This permits data to be transferred to base station using communications network. A virtual private network (VPN) connects station to communications service provider networks, web content processor, and via links to the Internet, including access to subscriber ISPs/corporate mail servers and other mail servers. Points of Presence (POP) provide Internet access and e-mail service to subscribers of the service while not on the aircraft. POPs can also be used by communications service provider networks and web content processors as an alternate means to connect to VPN.
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Citations
58 Claims
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1. A system for transmitting electronic data between a computer terminal on an aircraft and a terrestrial base station, the system comprising:
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a telephone network at least partially secured to the aircraft for providing telephone service to aircraft passengers;
a server mounted upon or within the aircraft and coupled to the telephone network for communicating with the computer terminal over the telephone network, wherein the terminal is disposed remotely from the server and is coupled to the telephone network; and
a terrestrial base station for selectively communicating with the server to allow the data to be passed between the base station and the terminal over the telephone network. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for transmitting electronic data between a terrestrial base station and a plurality of passenger computer terminals coupled to a network on an aircraft, the system comprising:
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a database for storing e-mail messages for the plurality of passenger computer terminals; and
a server secured to the aircraft and coupled to the database and to the plurality of passenger computer terminals via the network, wherein the server and database are configured to collect and store a plurality of e-mail messages from the plurality of passenger computer terminals before establishing an intermittent wireless link with the base station, and configured to transmit the plurality of e-mail messages as a group over the link to the base station when the aircraft is in flight and when the server determines to initiate the transmission. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. An aircraft computer communication system for use on an aircraft, wherein the aircraft carries a plurality of passengers having computer terminals, the system comprising:
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a database for storing e-mail messages for the plurality of passenger computer terminals;
a network hub located on the aircraft for allowing the transfer of the e-mail messages to the passenger computer terminals; and
a first port and a second port located on the aircraft for coupling the database with passenger computer terminals and for allowing the establishment of a first network node and a second network node respectively, and wherein the network hub routes selected e-mail messages between the database and the terminals. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36)
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37. A method for transmitting electronic data between a plurality of passenger computer terminals on an aircraft and a terrestrial base station, the method comprising:
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collecting and storing a plurality of e-mail messages for the plurality of passenger computer terminals at the base station;
establishing an intermittent wireless link with the base station; and
transmitting the plurality of e-mail messages as a group over the link between an airborne database and the base station. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
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51. A system for transmitting electronic data between a computer terminal on an aircraft and a terrestrial base station, the system including:
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a server mounted upon or within the aircraft for communicating with the computer terminal wherein the terminal is disposed remotely from the server; and
a terrestrial base station for selectively communicating with the server to allow the data to be passed between the base station and the terminal. - View Dependent Claims (52, 53, 54)
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55. A method for transmitting electronic data between a plurality of passenger computer terminals on an aircraft and a terrestrial base station, the method comprising:
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collecting and storing a plurality of e-mail messages from the plurality of passenger computer terminals at an airborne data base;
establishing an intermittent wireless link with the base station; and
transmitting the plurality of e-mail messages as a group over the link from the airborne database to a base station. - View Dependent Claims (56, 57, 58)
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Specification