WiFi (or in-flight connectivity) in planes in Europe can best be described as “patchy” at best, and “hopeless missing” at worse, with limited carriers offering WiFi connectivity aboard their planes on European routes (with Norwegian Air Shuttle operating the most planes with WiFi aboard), and other airlines making token efforts as they dip their toes into the WiFi water (such as SAS who have rolled out 10 737-800s with WiFi and Vueling who have a few planes with kit installed).
Well it seems Lufthansa is to break the pack, with plans to introduce in-flight connectivity on Short to Medium Haul Services.
Lufthansa Airbus A320 landing at Frankfurt – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
The new service which is being provisioned by Inmarsat will operate on Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network – operating on the Ka-Band, in conjunction with Deutsche Telekom.
Lufthansa says that as well as accessing email “superior” application will be available to use and “even streaming”.
As well as WiFi service, there will be cellular service too, which will allow access to their own data plans, and making/receiving texts in the air.
Thankfully, voice calls will not be allowed.
Costs for the service have not been announced yet.
Lufthansa will be the first aviation customer for Immarsat’s network, with roll-out aboard its Airbus A320 fleet from Summer 2016.
Lufthansa Technik will have its work cut out as it will install the equipment on the planes – as well as the paperwork side of licensing and legal work required the devices for use. Meanwhile, Lufthansa Systems will be setting up the technical infrastructure to bring this all together.
However, this won’t be the only part of the service. In 2017, Lufthansa will commence a trial of a “Hybrid service”, combining S-band output from Inmarsat, and LTE ground coverage on the ground by Deutsche Telekom, called “The European Aviation Network”.
Why hybrid system? Costs seem to be one of the drivers here, as well as the ability to use a flexible network so the network can grow as needed.
It’s an interesting development for In-flight conectivity in Europe. Whilst the countries of Europe are close together physically, licensing of spectrum and networks still remain the purview of each country, and thus adds a lot of regulatory hurdles. Certainly, there has been no progress on a Air to Ground solution in Europe until now, and most deployments have been to long haul planes.
Ultimately, whilst the service maybe offered – it will come down to the cost to the consumer, and the uptake of the service if this is a success or not.
And consumers are price sensitive. Whilst there are plenty of corporate accounts that will happily welcome this to keep their employees connected, there will be others who will need to pay to fill that gap.
What next? The big question will be how other carriers in Europe react to this – and what technologies they use to roll out in-flight connectivity. Airlines have been dipping their toes in the inflight connectivity race, but with Lufthansa’s move – it maybe coming down to point where airlines need to solidify their plans and bring them forward.
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