In-flight WiFi is nothing new to most people, but you might not have used it on an international flight before. Trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights don’t have access to land-based radio towers so getting a signal to them isn’t as easy as it is on domestic flights. Even so, Virgina Atlantic’s Airbus A330 jets will offer in-flight internet on the New York to London route soon. This will be followed up by WiFi service on 17 planes and more than 10 routes by 2013.
The internet service will be provided by AeroMobile, whose majority stakeholder is Panasonic Avionics Corporation as of March 2012. While the plane is in the air, and cruising above 6000 meters, Aeromobile gets internet access by using a satellite connection which transmits to a picocell that is installed on the plane. From there a signal is able to be sent out to the GSM devices on-board and communications can be made. While connected, Aeromobile appears to be a normal mobile carrier through which users can send texts, make calls, or access the internet. It doesn’t work quite like GoGo, but it gets the job done (and it’s more seamless in some ways).
To allow all this to happen Aeromobile uses Inmarsat’s L-Band satellite service, which is pretty standard for in-flight WiFi when ground towers are not accessible.
While it’s great to see, Virgin Atlantic is not at all the first company to offer a service like this. British America already has WiFi on their London to NYC route and provides like OnAir offer GSM services on many different flights (and have for some time).
