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Surfing the Net flying

Anand Parthasarathy

SKY-FI! The Wi-Fi access station inside the Essar Group's Corporate Jet at the Mumbai Airport

BANGALORE: In what may be a first for Indian aviation, a corporate aircraft has been converted into a wireless `hotspot,' allowing passengers to surf the Internet from the laptops while in the air.

The Wireless Local Area Network (LAN), popularly known as Wi-Fi, has just been created on-board a 12-seater corporate jet by Indian engineers of D-Link, the Taiwan-based networking products leader. They have successfully installed a wireless access point in the passenger cabin, together with a printer server. In effect it wirelessly enables any laptop or PC on board to access the Internet at the best speeds currently available — 4 gigabytes per second — and share a printer, which has also been installed. The network is satellite-linked to an Internet service provider on the ground to complete the access.

The aircraft is owned and operated by the Rs. 20,000-crore Essar Group, which recently acquired a majority holding in BPL Mobile. P. Vyas, D-Link India's Director Sales and Marketing, told The Hindu in a special briefing on Saturday: " This Wi-Fi installation is the first of its kind especially in India. The installation per se, would be normal in an office; but doing it on an aircraft is what made this a different challenge."

Internet access on scheduled airline flights, is just over a year old and only some 70-odd aircraft worldwide are currently equipped to provide passenger surfing services.

Lufthansa was the first to introduce a Sky-Net service in May last year, on a few select flights, which now includes the Delhi-Munich sector. Since then, a dozen airlines have followed suit — including Singapore Airlines, SAS, Japan Airlines and China Airlines.

Specialist companies spun off by the two leading passenger aircraft makers — Connexion from Boeing and OnAir from Airbus — provide these services.

The entire business of the Internet via WiFi in the sky — or "Sky-Fi," as it is being called — may explode by year end. This is because the ban on the use of mobile phones by passengers, while planes are airborne, might be lifted, albeit gradually. The (U.S.) Federal Communications Commission is now said to be of the view that the danger to aircraft navigation may be overstated.

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