Inmarsat plans EU-wide 'hybrid' network for plane wi-fi

The London-based firm will link aircraft to the internet via cellphone towers on the ground that have been modified to point skywards. A new spacecraft will augment the system, ensuring passengers experience an unbroken onboard wi-fi service, BBC News reports. Inmarsat says its hybrid network will also support a range of other services. These are likely to include high-resilience communications that can be used by government agencies in security situations or in disaster response. For the in-flight application, British Airways is in advanced discussions to be a launch customer. It will be hoping that the ability to drive connections through a ground tower-infrastructure, rather than just through a traditional satellite network, can increase dramatically the capacity of those connections while at the same time substantially reducing the cost of the wi-fi tariffs offered to passengers. Major projects Inmarsat, whose role in the search for the lost Malaysian jet MH370 has brought it international prominence, is Britain's biggest space company. It is currently in the process of rolling out its £1bn ($1.6bn) next-generation mobile satellite communications network called Global Xpress. This is series of big spacecraft that are being placed around the planet to provide connectivity to customers in remote locations. These will include ships at sea, oil and gas installations, deployed armed-forces, aid agencies in disaster areas, and TV news crews reporting from trouble zones. It will also include aeroplanes, but the project announced on Thursday will be a very different proposition - geographically, because it is restricted to Europe; and technically, because of its use of cell towers. This so-called "air-to-ground" architecture mirrors the approach taken by GoGo in the US, which has been providing in-flight broadband internet to commercial jet liners since 2008. AT&T is now developing a rival system in North America. Inmarsat is expecting first-mover advantage as it seeks to bring a hybrid, satellite/air-to-ground system to Europe. It is able to do this because it has access to the necessary tranche of radio frequencies. These are in the S-band. The European Commission granted Inmarsat a licence to operate in this part of the spectrum in 2009, and it has been looking for the right business opportunity ever since. "The ability to deploy terrestrial technology to serve aeroplanes gives you dramatic capacity and cost-per-bit advantages [over traditional satellite only services]," explained Rupert Pearce, the CEO of Inmarsat. "We can deliver over 40 gigabits per second across an air-to-ground network in Europe. That translates to incredible capacity, so the whole plane can get out their device and start furiously using the internet. We've seen American consumers taking to the GoGo experience in droves - they love being connected on aircraft, and they get a really rich experience at a decent cost," he told BBC News. To read more