Boeing and three great airlines will offer Interne

Boeing and three great airlines will offer Internet on board

Boeing and three great American airlines were united in a project in the heat of to offer access of high speed to the Internet and other services of data flight, that prevén to have ready in about 1,500 airplanes as of the second semester of 2002

Washington. – The aerospace giant Boeing, with seat in the American city of Seattle, said that American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines will take a minority participation in their unit “online” Connexion, that leads the project.

“Each one of the airlines and Boeing will give a critical amount that will help to ensure the success this service”, the president of Connexion said, Scott Carson, in a press conference in Washington. The aerial passengers will be able to choose between many services in real time, including accesses to the Internet and to networks Intranet, electronic mail, live television, transmission and reception of data, trips and information on destinies and purchases, to Carson and representatives of the air lines said.

In the first package of the project it will not be including the service of telephone calls through the Internet. “Somehow it can be threatening for many, because it will not be possible to be rested in the airplane”, Ray Valeika said, vice-president of technical operations of Delta. “Seen otherwise, it is going to be very exciting”. The service will be sent with the name “Connexion by Boeing”.

Carson said that the service will use satellites to provide access to the Internet to the airplanes at speeds with five Mbits/sec and gathering the data from the airplanes to a Mbits/sec. The individual connections will vary based on the number of passengers connected simultaneously, but each passenger will have guaranteed a minimum speed of 56 kilobits per second, explained.

The conventional services of the Internet via telephone can operate at a terminal velocity of 56 kilobits per second, whereas the services of broadband offer much more high speeds of access generally. The service “Connexion by Boeing” will be available in all the airplane to a cost of about 20 dollars the hour, indicated Carson. The project will be available initially in the continental area of the United States and will be extended gradually to everybody, added.

The operators of airlines would in the heat of benefit with access to data at the moment nonavailable flight, which would make the tasks of maintenance and programming easier, representatives of the airlines said.

American, United and Delta glide to install the service each one in 500 of their airplanes and other airlines are considering to add themselves to the project, revealed Carson. “we are working actively with the other airlines around the world”, said. The rival company Tenzing Inc. Communications, that less offers a developed technology although with a cost of inferior installation, already has several international clients who use services of the Internet in some of their flights.

Tenzing, also with seat in Seattle, signed agreements with Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airways [ VA.UL ] of Great Britain and Cathay Pacific Airways de Hong Kong. It is anticipated that another rival of Boeing, the European manufacturer of airplanes Airbus Industrie, will acquire a participation in Tenzing. Airbus belongs to the group European Aeronautic Defence and Space, that has the 80 percent, and to Briton BAE Systems.