Deutsche Telekom, Inmarsat and Nokia announced the completion of the first cross-border LTE network in Europe, as part of the European Aviation Network. The LTE ground network will combine with Inmarsat's satellite services to deliver in-flight connectivity to planes across Europe.
The LTE network includes 300 base stations across all 28 member states of the European Union, as well as Switzerland and Norway. The completion of the network follows Inmarsat’s successful launch of its EAN satellite last summer, which has since been extensively tested in orbit and has been fully operational since September 2017.
The first services over the European Aviation Network will be available for airlines to offer commercially from the first half of 2018. The service has been trialed during several flights to test the integrated satellite and complementary LTE ground network. The test flights have confirmed that EAN meets its design performance in practice, providing latency of less than 100 ms, the partners said.
International Airlines Group (IAG), which includes airline brands such as British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, is the launch customer for the new service and has already commenced installations of EAN equipment on aircraft.
