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Verizon: Close to Bringing In-flight WiFi & VoIP to U.S. Market
TMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
Verizon's Airfone division announced on Monday it's speeding up efforts to provide in-flight wireless broadband and VoIP-based calling services in the U.S. market.
Today's news follows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s approval for auctioning spectrum in the 800 MHz band for commercial air-to-ground telecom services, therefore allowing the auctioning of spectrum licenses amongst carriers by early next year. The agency's move would allow Verizon Airfone to begin offering in-flight wireless Internet access in 2007 if the carrier acquires a license.
"We are pleased with the FCC's efforts to promote the development of broadband services, and we urge the FCC to move as quickly as possible to auction new licenses in the 800 MHz band," said Bill Pallone, president, Verizon Airfone Inc. "Verizon Airfone is excited about the opportunity to provide innovative wireless services to the flying public, and there are many interested airlines and general aviation operators that share our commitment to this broadband vision."
Verizon Airfone has been conducting in-flight demo tests in commercial planes since September last year. The service has achieved ground-to-air peak data speeds of 2.4 Mbps (megabits per second). "In June 2005, Verizon Airfone became the first company to receive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to install the necessary cabin equipment to enable passenger and crew use of wireless (WiFi) devices onboard U.S. domestic commercial aircraft," noted the company's news release.
Verizon Airfone joined forces with CDMA developer QUALCOMM Incorporated in order to complete their first commercially packaged air radio prototype in July. Supporting CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, special features of this air radio include provisions for extended distances and Doppler compensation for high-speed aircraft.
Verizon Airfone also worked with Airvana, a broadband CDMA network infrastructure systems based on 3G EV-DO wireless packet-data technology. Together, they developed a customized radio base station with RF-filtering capabilities to eliminate interference usually caused by systems operating in adjacent radio bands.
Verizon Airfone in-flight WiFi service will provide passengers with access to the Internet; corporate VPN (Virtual Private Network) e-mail and Web-based personal e-mail accounts; streaming video; and VoIP services. Once Verizon Airfone's broadband network is in place, airlines and general aviation operators only need to hook up an avionics box, a wireless access point and a directional antenna to begin offering wireless broadband services to their passengers.
Verizon Airfone is currently available on United Airlines, Continental Airlines, US Airways and Delta Air Lines commercial flights.
The VoIP Minute Watch previously reported about a similar service called Connexion offered by Boeing. The in-flight high-speed Internet service celebrated its first-year in-service anniversary back in May. The service is either currently being offered or will soon be offered in select commercial flights by Singapore Airlines, Luftansa, British Airways, Japan Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines and China Airlines.
Connexion by Boeing also teamed up with QUALCOMM Incorporated for this project just as Verizon Airfone did. Connexion by Boeing and QUALCOMM announced in August that they joined forces to test and demonstrate in-flight wireless communications aboard Connexion One, a specially equipped Boeing 737-400 aircraft.
The companies performed a series of test flights that successfully demonstrated the simultaneous use of CDMA and GSM mobile phone technology over an on-board network with infrastructure and integration support from UTStarcom, Inc. Using standard cellular communications, a small in-cabin CDMA2000 and GSM "picocell," or small cellular base station, is connected to the worldwide terrestrial network by an air-to-ground satellite link provided by the Connexion by Boeing high-speed airborne network.
During the test, passengers were able to successfully download business applications, 3D games, information and communication applications such as e-mail and instant messenger (IM) wirelessly, over the air. Passengers also downloaded and watched video clips and made phone calls on a variety of mobile devices including 3G mobile phones. The data tests were conducted over CDMA2000 1X and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO and voice calls were made over CDMA2000 and GSM.
Verizon Communications Inc.
Connexion by Boeing
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit Johanne Torres' columnist page.
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