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 In late December the US Federal Communications Commission approved the use of Boeing's Connexion service that will give users broadband access to the Internet, e-mail and television while on-board an airplane.
The project has been hit by a number of setbacks however since it was unveiled in April 2000. In the wake of the tragic events of 11 September, Boeing has slashed thousands of jobs worldwide and Connexion has had its numbers scaled back from 600 to around 350.
American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Airlines, along with Germany's Lufthansa, were set to help fund the promising new venture but last month, citing the turmoil in the travel industry, the three American firms decided to pull out of the project, leaving only Boeing and Lufthansa to support the undertaking.
Despite the setbacks Boeing says it remains committed to Connexion, which delivers a hefty Internet connection speed of 5 megabytes per second. By comparison, a ground-based cable modem might offer one megabyte per second of connectivity. And although pricing has not yet been announced, it is thought that the service will cost users around USD20 per hour.
The technology that makes the service possible is a proprietary phased array antenna, which allows for two-way data transmission. The antenna directs beams electronically, permitting connections between satellites and mobile platforms. The program was unveiled in April 2000 and since that time Boeing has been running test flights for the service.
Although Boeing claims to be fully behind the venture it does admit that revenues from it are years away. Connexion president Scott Carson said last month that the project would experience "a couple of years of negative cash flow" and it would be five to seven years before the unit generates enough money to make a significant contribution the parent company.
But Carson has in the past predicted that demand for in-flight Internet service would grow to about USD45 billion a year over the next decade and said Connexion hoped to capture about 10 percent of that market.
And Connexion is not just a theoretical project, it is actually implementing services in both the US and Europe. Earlier this year Boeing won a contract valued at USD112 million to equip aircraft for US Vice President Dick Cheney and other US government officials with two-way Internet, e-mail and television service. Under the contract with the US Air Force, Boeing will outfit as many as four C-32As with Connexion.
The company is in the process of rolling out the service for some of Lufthansa's long hauls flights and says it should be available to consumers by early 2003.
Connexion is not the only company operating in the space. Paying around USD150 million, Airbus last year purchased 30 percent of Seattle-based Tenzing Communications which provides a similar service to Cathay Pacific, Air Canada and Brazil's Varig.
The Tenzing system however does not offer true real-time connectivity. Users can upload information such as e-mail to the plane's server, which intermittently connects to the Internet, sending cached data to users such as stock quotes and news.
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