Aircell, the in-flight Internet access provider, has received two important approvals from the FAA and is now cleared to deliver its service, notes Ars Technica. It will be available on American Airlines and Virgin America in 2008.
Aircell’s Gogo Inflight Internet turns a commercial airplane into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check any e-mail, and log on to their corporate VPN, but VoIP services will NOT be available.
Currently, Aircell is focusing on AA’s Boeing 767-200 transcontinental fleet, and has additional plans to work with Virgin America. The new FCC permits allow Aircell to produce and deploy its technology on any aircraft that’s cleared to use it.
Aircell’s inflight service is delivered by a series of 92 cellular towers scattered across the 48 states, using 3GHz of cellular spectrum. The FCC allocated the 849-851/894-895 MHz bands for air-ground radiotelephone service. The spectrum was largely bought by Aircell and LiveTV. LiveTV features in-seat video with up to 36 channels of live satellite programming, a GPS map channel and four additional channels of stored content.
Aircell uses a set of three antennas (one on top of the aircraft and two on the bottom) to keep the plane communicating with the terrestrial network. Aircell expects to deploy about 500 antennas, enough to cover the entire country and support as many as 250,000 broadband users.
Oceanic flights will have to use satellites — since there aren’t many cell towers in the middle of the ocean.
OnAir, formed in 2005, is owned by an airline-owned provider of IT solutions and Airbus. It uses Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband service (above), enabling WiFi access as well as GSM mobile phones that support international roaming.
In-flight broadband is taking off — with and without voice:
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American Airlines:
Aircell won the rights to 3-MHz on the 800-MHz spectrum to deliver broadband to airlines from terrestrial towers. Passengers connect via Wi-Fi inside planes. AA began testing the service on its fleet of Boeing 767-200 aircraft in August 2007, with the goal is to provide broadband service to all passengers in 2008. -
Alaska Airlines:
Row 44 is providing Ku band transponders with downlink speeds of 81Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.6 Mbps. Passengers get a Wi-Fi connection for Internet, e-mail, VPNs, and stored in-flight entertainment for $10 for up to two hours, $15 for 2-5hr and $20 for more than 5hr. If the airline chooses, the link can also be used to support VoIP from dual-mode phones. Row 44 leases Ku-band satellite transponders from several operators, but is managed through HughesNet. Alaska hopes to have Wi-Fi connections on all 144 of its planes up and running by spring 2008 and more than 100 channels of live television. -
Air France:
As well as AirAsia, Oman Air and Jazeera Airways offer OnAir inflight passenger communications services. -
Virgin America:
Virgin America will be the second major U.S. airline to employ Aircell for Wi-Fi enabled devices. Additionally, the airline’s Red Inflight Entertainment network will allow customers to use a wide variety of instant messaging services on their seatbacks, including MSN messenger, Google talk, Yahoo! messenger, and AIM. The company hopes to have its all of its planes connected “sometime in 2008.” -
JetBlue:
Plans a nation-wide PlaneFi service using LiveTV, a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue that won rights to 1 MHz of the 800-MHz spectrum last year. They’re currently trialling free e-mail and instant-messaging on one Airbus A320. Wi-Fi connects user devices (no voice). If the trial goes well, JetBlue is expected to expand the service.
The first commercial in-flight mobile phone call was made on March 21, 2008, by Inmarsat partner AeroMobile from Emirates airlines flying an Airbus A340-300 en route to Casablanca, Morocco. The airline says it will invest US$27 million to fit its fleet with the system.
On April 2nd, on board a specially equipped Airbus A318 flying European routes, passengers were able to use their cell phone not only to send and receive text messages and emails, but also to make and receive calls for the first time at 30,000 feet. OnAir supplied the satellite backhaul while femto cells in the airplace provided a local cellular connection.
SwiftBroadband uses the narrow spot-beams of the Inmarsat-4 satellites. Initially accessible over the Indian and Atlantic Ocean regions, it will be available globally, except the extreme polar regions, following the successful launch of the third I-4 satellite. SwiftBroadband became operational last October and is available through distribution partners MVS, OnAir, Stratos and Vizada.
The third Inmarsat-4 satellite, covering the Pacific, is scheduled to launch soon from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Inmarsat delayed shipping the third Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite to the launch pad until this month (April), amid hand-wringing after a similar Russian Proton’ upper stage booster suffered a glitch, and dumped the DISH Network satellite in a useless orbit earlier this year.
Panasonic Avionics is the world’s leading supplier of in-flight entertainment equipment, including music, video on demand, in-flight shopping, phone service, email, video games, and GPS flight location display. PAC is an approved supplier to both Boeing and Airbus. Their main competitors include Thales Group, Rockwell Collins, and LiveTV.
The European Union has given the okay to use of cellphones on airlines, once the plane has reached an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). But the airlines must now tackle the issues of etiquette, openness and free speech, points out the Associated Press.
“This gets into a ticklish area,” says Vint Cerf, one of the Internet’s chief creators and generally a critic of network restrictions. “Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are seated close together and may be able to see each other’s PC screens. More to the point, young people are often aboard the plane.”
Panasonic Avionics is testing airborne services on Australia’s Qantas Airways, designed to block sites on “an objectionable list,” including porn and violence, says David Bruner, executive director for corporate sales and marketing. Panasonic says that the launch customer for its Ku-band satellite service, to be launched this year, is a US carrier.
Blogrunner and In Flight Online track the different approaches to deliver airplane broadband.
Related DailyWireless stories include; Aircell Vs Row44: Two for Two, FlyFi Takes Off, Lufthansa & AA Trying WiFi — Again, Inflight Phones Banned by FAA?, AirCell on Virgin by 2008, Wireless Voice on Airplanes? Yes & No, AirCell Demos Inflight WiFi, Aircell for Planes, FCC Rules on Airplane Cellular, Connexion On Again?, Dis Connexion, Connexion Dying, AirFone Dead, Airplane Internet Auction Over, Airplane Wireless Auction (Virtually) Over, AirCell Demos Inflight WiFi and Connexion Press Junket.
