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A provider of in-flight Internet access will move a step closer Monday to delivering a system that may someday let airline passengers make calls from their own mobile phones.

Connexion by Boeing, a mobile information service provider that is a division of The Boeing Company, will announce its choice of vendors for the Wi-Fi access points it will start deploying in airliners next year.

The company will use the WASP (Wireless Access Service Point) from Miltope, in Montgomery, Alabama; the rugged device is specially designed for planes and is based on the Colubris Networks CN1054 access device. The planes will be connected to the Internet via satellite at 20 megabits per second downstream and 1 mbps upstream.

Start Talking

Though that system as deployed next year will be designed for wireless data, with no provisions for ensuring the quality of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls, Connexion is looking toward VOIP as a way to offer voice service on board, according to Stan Deal, vice president of global network sales at Connexion, in Seattle.

"We see voice as a formal offering as part of our service evolution, subject to clearing the regulatory approval," Deal said. That offering may appear as early as 2005.

Making calls on cell phones has been banned on planes because it uses frequencies that can interfere with navigation systems on planes, according to Deal. Connexion is now exploring two possible systems for allowing voice calls from mobile phones while in flight. Over a wireless LAN, passengers could use Wi-Fi VOIP phones, which are available from Cisco Systems and other vendors. Dual-mode phones with both Wi-Fi and cellular capability, also on the way from several vendors, could allow travelers to carry just one phone.

Alternatively, Connexion by Boeing might install a special "picocell," a small, airplane-safe version of the cells found on towers on the ground, to serve passengers on the plane, who would use conventional cell phones. The picocell would have a gateway to convert the calls to VOIP and send them over the satellite uplink, he said.

Regulation of VOIP carriers is now being studied by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and Connexion has a team in Washington, D.C., watching that process, Deal said. The company will also have to figure out how to ensure sufficient quality of service for phone calls, because IP networks are designed primarily for data. Voice transmission is more sensitive to delays than is data traffic.

Technical Details

The Miltope devices, which include integrated 10/100-mbps Ethernet ports, will allow airlines to hook up a server that will deliver special content to passengers over the LAN, said Bob Guidetti, senior director at Miltope. In addition to passenger services, the access points may be used by the airline for downloading and uploading information while the plane is at the terminal.

The WASP also includes an integrated VPN server, a firewall with packet filtering and hardware-assisted data encryption, and user authentication via a separate server using IPSec (IP Security), L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), or PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol). Several access points may be deployed to cover a large plane--as many as five in a Boeing 747, said Carl Blume, director of product marketing at Colubris.

Rolling out a full-featured access point such as Miltope's is probably a good strategy in these early days, according to IDC analyst Abner Germanow.

"The key at this point in the game is not efficiency but flexibility," Germanow said. "You may not really be sure how the applications running over these networks will evolve."

For example, some hotels that deployed wireless LANs for guest use have found internal uses for them, such as giving wireless PDAs to employees who move around the premises. Similarly, airlines might find the wireless LANs useful for baggage handlers, caterers, or other people who work around the planes, he said.

Miltope is starting out by delivering 11-mbps WASPs that use IEEE 802.11b technology. Next year it will provide Connexion with its upgraded product, which will support 802.11g and 802.11a, both of which are designed for a maximum 54-mbps carrying capacity, Guidetti said.

Working Together

Connexion already has deals with several airlines, including Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines Systems, and Japan Airlines, to offer in-flight Internet services via wireless LANs.

Miltope last year began offering its devices for use on corporate jets and since then has seen many deployed on them, Guidetti said.

Connexion expects to offer Internet access priced from about $15 for short-haul domestic flights to about $30 for a long-haul trip.