Deutsche Telekom pledged a new European Aviation Network (EAN) “will change the way connectivity is consumed in the air” after achieving a major milestone alongside partners Inmarsat and Nokia which paves the way for commercial launch later this year.

In a press conference hosted by Deutsche Telekom, Rolf Nafziger SVP of international wholesale (pictured middle), said the EAN, which was first revealed in 2015, is now ready for launch after working “relentlessly” with Nokia to complete the ground network element of the infrastructure.

EAN is designed to provide Europe-wide connectivity to airline passengers through an infrastructure comprising two distinct components: a dedicated EAN satellite, which launched and has been in operation since September 2017; and an LTE network on the ground. This involved setting up 300 base stations across the 28 member states of the European Union, along with Switzerland and Norway – a deployment which was recently completed by Nokia and Deutsche Telekom.

Two antennas will be deployed on aircraft: one at the top for satellite  connectivity and one at the bottom to access the ground network.

Nafziger also confirmed International Airlines Group was its first customer and British Airways would be among the first to launch in the first half of this year.

Disruptive service
He hailed EAN as “a truly disruptive integrated service” and said completion of the ground network means “we are able to provide unprecedented performance of the entire integrated system using the available spectrum as efficiently as never before”.

Deutsche Telekom promised “unmatched connectivity for passengers”, offering bandwidth capable of delivering connection speeds of more than 75Mb/s to an aircraft, low latency and network capacity that is scalable to account for an increasing number of flights across the continent, which are projected to rocket.

Nafziger added there is an exclusivity on the frequency and capacity, so airlines cannot share connectivity with any other industries or users.

Nokia’s VP of vertical network slices at Nokia, Thorsten Robrecht (pictured, left) explained its LTE network on the ground connects to a server in the air and thus provides Wi-Fi access points in the cabin. He also said the three companies were open to working with operators which plan to copy the framework on other continents, while adding EAN was the only network of its kind currently being developed in Europe.

Airline industry
For the airline industry, Inmarsat Aviation’s SVP Frederik van Essen (pictured, right) said EAN will be game changing. Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat research showed Europe’s airspace is the busiest in the world, with 22,500 flights per day and 500 million passengers per year.

The companies also found more than half of these passengers would prefer inflight connectivity over a meal, while 69 per cent of those surveyed would be willing to pay for it.

Van Essen said a study conducted in collaboration with the London School of Economics also found there was “exploding demand” from people wanting to use broadband internet during trips, and it had the potential to generate $8.2 billion for European airlines by 2035.

“That figure is currently around zero… we cannot underestimate the benefits this can bring to Europe,” said van Essen.

The Inmarsat executive also addressed an ongoing legal claim from satellite rival ViaSat, which agued Inmarsat abused the conditions of a licence awarded by UK regulator Ofcom in 2009.

ViaSat believes Inmarsat should not use the spectrum in question for the EAN, and instead deploy it for a satellite-based mobile network which the licence was originally intended for.

Essen said during the press conference there is no merit to ViaSat’s claim and the situation would not delay EAN’s launch.