Virgin Launches Airborne E-Mail, Limited Web Access

Carrier taps Tenzing for low-speed but low-cost system in its entire fleet

By Jennifer DiSabatino and Bob Brewin

April 2, 2001 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. is planning to offer low-speed e-mail and limited Web access aboard its long-range Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 aircraft by year's end and to eventually equip all 32 planes in its fleet for the service.

Virgin Atlantic's E-Mail/Web Service

Starts by year's end in Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 aircraft

Offers2.4K bit/sec. air-to-ground connections.

Onboard server offers access to cached news Web pages, updated hourly from the ground

Low-cost installation, $50k per aircraft

The London-based airline is following the lead of competitors including Dorval, Quebec-based Air Canada and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. All three carriers have opted for a system developed by Tenzing Communications Inc. in Seattle.

The Boeing Co., also in Seattle, plans to offer a high-speed airborne and Internet e-mail package called Connexion by Boeing. It will be installed primarily in new aircraft it manufactures. Alan Pellegrini, Tenzing's president, said his low-speed system offers cost and time-to-market advantages.

Since the Virgin Atlantic and Air Canada systems use existing seat-back phone wiring, retrofitting aircraft is relatively quick and costs about $50,000 per plane, said Pellegrini.

Dylan Brooks, an analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. in New York, agreed with Pellegrini's cost estimate for retrofitting older aircraft but said that Boeing can cut installation costs on its new aircraft if it installs wireless LANs on the planes.

Virgin Atlantic will offer air-to-ground connectivity of 2.4K bit/sec. through International Maritime Communications Organization satellites, compared with the 5M bit/sec. service planned by Boeing. Virgin Atlantic passengers will hook their laptops into data jacks on seat-back phones and use existing aircraft wiring to send e-mail to an onboard server that will cache the messages.

At intervals of an hour or less during each flight, the server will connect via satellite to the ground to send and receive e-mail.

The server also will hold a limited number of cached Web pages, with topical pages such as news feeds updated on an hourly basis.

Virgin Atlantic passengers without laptops or handheld computers will also be able to tap into the cached Web pages through a touch-screen in-flight entertainment system, Pellegrini said.

He also indicated that Tenzing is close to announcing several deals with other carriers, including a "major" Mideast airline.

Brooks said Tenzing is "well positioned for a slew of deals," including a formal supplier agreement with Airbus Industrie in Toulouse, France. But, he added, "Tenzing is not necessarily locked into this market. . . There is still a demand for real-time Internet access."

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