Mobility: Fasten your seatbelts.

Byline: Lorraine Turner

Airlines in Europe are vying for advantage in inflight mobile and broadband services--even before they have the regulatory clearance for takeoff. Air France, Ryanair and the UK's second largest carrier bmi all have been named in announcements over the past few months that claim they will be first to provide commercial services.

The catalyst was an announcement in August by OnAir that it had signed a deal to become the first distribution partner for Inmarsat's SwiftBroadband satellite service.

"[Commercial] airlines want to be first in the market," said George Cooper, chief executive of OnAir. "There is intense pressure to make things happen sooner rather than later, but to get it right."

OnAir, a joint venture between Airbus and Sita, said the Mobile OnAir satellite service will support inflight voice, SMS and email services, as well as enabling airlines to send information on connecting flights or baggage collection to passengers' mobile phones. Commercial trials using Inmarsat technology would begin with bmi and Portuguese airline TAP.

Then later in August, low-cost European airline Ryanair said it had teamed up with OnAir to enable passengers to use their mobiles on the airline's entire fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft.

Ryanair duly claimed the deal would make it the first European airline to offer such services across Europe when they become available in mid 2007.

In a separate statement, a spokesman for OnAir said Air France was hoping to introduce the service--first, of course--in the first quarter of 2007.

Whoever is first to market, all will be hoping for more success than Boeing experienced with its inflight Internet service, Connexion, launched in 2004. In the same month that Europe's airlines were talking up inflight services, the US giant announced it would take a US$320 million charge to shut down Connexion, which cost US$26.95 for an entire long-haul flight or $9.95 for the first hour.

"Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected," Boeing chairman and chief executive, Jim McNerney, said in a statement at the time. Indeed, although some research shows business users are eager for inflight services, consumer passengers could be deterred by costly roaming rates likely to apply to mobile services initially.

OnAir's Cooper says airline passengers could pay US$2.30--$2.50 per minute initially, with prices dropping to US$1.50 in five years. Ryanair says charges will be in line with international roaming rates.

But regulation could still provide the biggest barrier to uptake.

In the US, the aviation authority FAA is still against the use of inflight mobile services. And regulatory issues could still scupper services in Europe, too.

OnAir has proposed a regional regulatory framework based on the co-operation of national regulators, said Sonia Hilton, the company's manager of regulatory affairs, Europe.

The proposal suggests that a telecoms licence should be issued in the country in which the aircraft is manufactured, with the states involved accepting that no additional authorisations are necessary.

"The regulators are very positive and supportive of the approach," said Hilton.

But OnAir also needs to gain access to spectrum from national regulators. It is recommending that in-flight mobile services should be exempt from spectrum licensing because the system does not interfere with terrestrial mobile networks.

"Cordless telephony is not licensed because it doesn't interfere [with ground networks]," said Hilton. It would "simplify matters enormously".

According to the company, its on-board channel equipment will stop mobile phones from connecting to network signals outside the aircraft as well as minimising the power levels of handsets.

OnAir has collaborated with the pan-European communications regulatory body, CEPT, which is harmonised with the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC). A draft framework, outlining OnAir's position, has been prepared by the ECC as well as a compatibility study by the Spectrum Engineering Working Group. Parallel studies are being conducted internationally.

Ryanair's service plans to use satellite broadband links as well as a ground network provided by OnAir's infrastructure partner Monaco Telecom, which will also supply roaming agreements. Ryanair will receive a proportion of call revenues.

And in the US, the experience of Boeing has not deterred all service providers. In June, the FCC awarded licences to Aircell, which plans to offer WiFi services, and Live TV--a subsidiary of low-cost airline JetBlue--to provide inflight voice and Internet services; Verizon Airfone already held a licence.

But airlines could face a further difficulty with onboard services.

A recent straw poll by Total Telecom showed most respondents--66.7% of the total--were overwhelmingly against inflight mobile services.

Additional reporting by Anne Morris