Boeing has already launched its Connexion system for broadband communications to business aircraft, and at the Farnborough Air Show last month presented its development as a commercial system for the world’s airlines.

It will be operational in US airspace in the fourth quarter of next year, and elsewhere in the world on a phased roll-out plan extending to 2003/4. It is intended to be available to all makes of airliners and to all airlines.

In addition to downloading movies and television programming to feed the airliners’ in-flight entertainment systems, the Connexion system will provide Internet access and e- mail delivery for both passengers and crew communications in either direction. System capability will be 5Mbit/s inbound (receive) and 1Mbit/s transmit. Traffic management will be performed by an onboard server; in fact, Boeing intends to become an ISP. A cost to the passenger of as little as $17.50 (E19.29) per hour of access was mentioned at the Boeing press conference; it is not impossible that Internet access and e-mails might be charged at a higher rate than entertainment content.

At Farnborough, Boeing showed its phased-array antenna, a flat-plate system approximately 80x25cm in size (plus fairing), which the company said derived from military technology developed as long ago as 1986. The antenna responds automatically to changes in aircraft course and attitude.

For space segment capacity, Boeing has an agreement with Loral Skynet to use a Telstar satellite as signal relay in US airspace. Alenia will be looking after the European market, and Mitsubishi Electric has been contracted to cater for the Asian Market. The Radiocommunication Bureau of the ITU said that it had no objection in principle to the use of Ku-band satellites for mobile services, subject to proper notification.

But Connexions is not the only system in the pipeline. There is also In-Flight Network, which is a brainchild of avionics manufacturer Rockwell Collins teamed with News Corp, as a content provider. IFN plans to use the Globalstar satellite system (already operational if not heavily used) as a space segment. It appears that the meagre 9.6Kbit/s data capacity of Globalstar applies only to its use via portable handsets with omni antennas; a data rate of at least 200Kbit/s is planned for IFN, and rates of up to 800kbps are theoretically achievable.

Making a tentative debut at Farnborough was a planned joint venture by Thomson-CSF Sextant teamed with Astrium. This is seen as building on an existing business base called LiveTV, operated jointly by Thomson and Harris Corp for downloading broadcast video via an Intelsat satellite; this is already operational on JetBlue Airways and is being trialled by Alaska Airlines. Fill passenger and crew communications capabilities would probably not need separate satellite capacity initially: Inmarsat has been mentioned as a return-link carrier.

Finally (for the present), there is the AirTV deal between that company and Alcatel Space, teamed with BAE Systems of Canada. Apparently the ‘airlines’ telco’ SITA is also involved in crafting a project which might see Alcatel Space building up to four dedicated satellites, to operate in S-Band.