UK firm's dreams of Web access on planes take wing

`Making use of existing antennas on airplanes cuts the cost of installation of an on-board high-speed data system by as much as US$250,000.'

The pool of firms vying to provide airline passengers with high-speed Internet service just got another player.

Inmarsat Ltd, the British satellite communications firm, announced Tuesday it would begin selling satellite bandwidth to fliers who wish to surf the Web, send e-mail and eventually, watch television. The service, called Swift64 and resold by four separate providers, will be offered to corporate jet owners in June and to commercial airliners by year's end, said Simon Tudge, an Inmarsat marketing manager.

Swift64 offer data speeds of up to 64 kilobits per second, equivalent to an earth-bound digital subscriber line, or DSL, connection.

A smattering of other firms already offer -- or are girding to provide -- satellite Internet or television on airplanes. They include the Boeing Co and Tenzing Communications, a partial subsidiary of European airline builder Airbus Industrie.

Inmarsat's the first service to make use of antennas already installed on 4,000 commercial airliners and private jets that use Inmarsat for communications.

Making of existing antennas cuts the cost of installation of an on-board high-speed data system by as much as US$250,000, Trudge said.

To use the service, carriers need to upgrade an aircraft's avionics -- a US$200,000 investment -- as well as wire the plane with a computer network to provide an Internet jack at each seat. In most cases, passengers would connect their own laptop computers to the network.

The network would connect to a single on-board Internet server that transmits and receives data via the plane's Inmarsat antenna.

Trudge bandwidth would be provided to the aircraft at about US$11 to US$15 per minute, which could be resold to passengers at the carrier's discretion.

Other providers are scrambling to offer similar services. Boeing is gearing to offer a satellite communications called Connexion, which will provide television as well as high-speed Internet.