EAN to provide airline passengers with broadband internet

The EAN service consists of S-band satellite-based and ground-based networks, and is designed to provide airline passengers with access to the same wireless internet speeds they are used to in the home.

Passengers will be able to use social media, share pictures and stream high-bandwidth content during their flight.

The companies recently completed the set-up of around 300 base stations across the 28 EU member states, plus Switzerland and Norway. This makes it the first Europe-wide network based on LTE technology, a high-speed wireless communications standard.

The announcement follows Inmarsat’s launch of its EAN satellite in June 2017, which began operating in September.

The service will offer a high bandwidth service to customers, whether the aircraft is flying over land or water, with over 75Mbit/s connection speed to aircraft. This is because airlines using the service do not share network capacity with any non-aviation customers, Inmarsat said.

Unlike conventional wireless networks, the system needs to operate at speeds of up to 1,200km/h, heights of 10km, and with cells of up to150 km in size.