The completion of the European Aviation Network (EAN), which will provide broadband internet for flights across Europe, announced at a joint press conference, Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat, along with Nokia, paving the way for smartphones and other mobile devices on airplanes, for millions of passengers flying over Europe. EAN’s commercial mood will start in the first half of 2018, changing data on the airline market and its customers.
EAN is the world’s first unified network that combines S-band satellite technology and complementary LTE terrestrial technology and consists of 300 base stations across the 28 member states of the European Union. The completion of the base station network followed the successful launch of Inmarsat’s satellite last summer, which has since been extensively tested and has been in full operation since September 2017.
The service has been tested on several flights, confirming that the actual EAN performance meets the design goal, achieving an unprecedentedly low latency of less than 100 ms. The International Airlines Group (IAG), which includes airlines such as British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, is the pilot customer of the new service and has already begun installing EAN equipment on aircrafts.
