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German airline Lufthansa starts offering Internet access on airplanes
May 18, 2004;
First airline in the world offers already Internet access service on airplanes commercially - not just some trials!

Since we observe convergence of Wi-Fi and cell phones it may be interesting to notice that Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly available on airplanes, while cell phones still are not usable there...

Lufthansa is the first airline to offer a broadband Internet service with its own free portal. It means you can now use your time on board to do all the things you didn't get done on the ground or didn't have the opportunity to do in the air.

Michael Lamberty who is spokesman of Lufthansa informed journalists about the launch of this Internet access offer by sending email from height of 9800 meters, whe flying by Airbus A340-300 airplane on the flight from Munich to Los Angeles.

Until 2006 Lufthansa intends to equip all its airplanes with Internet access. Lufthansa uses Internet access technology for airplanes that is made by Boeing, but it is embeddaable also in airplanes from other coroporations like Airbus. How it works? A special antenna is embedded in a hull of the airplane that communicates with satellites and then data from satellites is forwarded to passengers with help of W-LAN (Wi-Fi). Access to Internet in airplanes of Lufthansa costs now 30 US dollars for the whole flight (what amounts to about 25 Euro).

To learn more about this service click here. Lufthansa is a part of Star Alliance so check out if your favorite air line is there too so you could use Lufthansa and take advantage of this Internet access on the airplane yourself...

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