Arinc and Telenor have accelerated plans to begin initial flight testing of their system enabling GSM mobile telephones to be used by passengers in flight, after a positive response from the market, writes Graham Dunn.
Norwegian telecommunications firm Telenor and US transport technology specialist Arinc have teamed up to initially offer in-flight voice and short messaging services (SMS) to passengers through their own GSM telephones, using the existing Inmarsat Aero H/H+ satellite network and infrastructure.
The partners demonstrated their solution in September at the World Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA) exhibition in Seattle and envisage operational launch a year from now, once regulatory approvals are in place.
Arinc managing director for Europe Graham Lake says that the company was taken aback at the high level of interest in the project from airlines during the WAEA show, and aims to secure initial customers by around the end of the year. They are still to decide how many they will seek to work with while getting the system up and running.
"Our best guess is that we will probably see it fully operational by the end of 2005," says Lake, who expects three airlines will use the system next year. The initial customers are likely to gradually phase in the service on specific city pairs.
Ahead of the operational launch, the partners will use data obtained from flight trials and implementations to help support efforts to complete the regulatory and certification process.
"We were planning to fly in quarter three of 2005. But we've now brought that forward by four to five months," says Lake.
Separately, the Sita, Airbus and Tenzing joint venture OnAir is also developing its own in-flight mobile telephony solution.
Source: Flight International
