Wireless Cabin Market Assessment
Survey
Imagine you
are flying in an airliner - someone in the office calls you on your mobile
to tell you that your presentation was changed by your boss. You switch on
your laptop, connect wireless to your company intranet and download the file.
Alternatively, you could be going on holiday and you start wondering about
the local attractions at your holiday destination, get out your PDA and hook
up to the Internet. Far fetched? In 1 year time we aim to have demonstrated
this technology.
Market Survey
A market
survey was conducted by ESYS plc http://www.esys.co.uk
.
Download Market
Survey Report
View Market Survey Results
in a slide show
About This
Survey
This survey
was conducted for the wireless cabin consortium by ESYS plc. The consortium
is co-ordinated by the German aerospace centre DLR and is backed by a team
of major industry players including Airbus, Ericsson, Inmarsat, Information
Society Technologies, KID-Systeme, Siemens, TriaGnoSys and University of Bradford
This survey was anonymous. No personally identifiable information was collected
by this survey. If you wish to get more infromation, please contact Dr Andrew
Rogoyski at ESYS plc.
Key Findings
This survey
presents an assessment of the market for the provision of voice and data
services within passenger aircraft. It has achieved this through surveys
of airline passengers, airlines and associated industries.
- There is
evidence among passengers, the airlines and the associated industry that
wireless services are or will be in demand, for a number of different reasons.
For the passenger, the ability to use their own mobile phone, preferably
billing direct to their terrestrial mobile operator, is a valuable service,
provided that issues such as noise nuisance can be solved. In addition, for
many passengers, the ability to access their e-mail and a variety of Internet
services is of strong interest, provided that issues such as device configuration
can be solved.
- Wireless
technology is expected to be beneficial to the airlines, offering them the
chance to take significant weight out of their aircraft and reduce maintenance
costs. Wireless technology also offers them the opportunity to improve support
for crew services and aircraft maintenance, whilst enabling them to be more
flexible in the way that equipment is deployed within the aircraft.
- The key concern
is associated with aircraft safety and passenger perception thereof, i.e.
that the wireless technologies must be proved not to interfere with aircraft
flight and navigation systems and that such flight certification can be achieved
on a global basis.
- There remains
a degree of uncertainty in several areas of the technical and commercial
design of a fully-fledged Wireless Cabin. One of the key drivers is to ensure
that the satellite capacity provided to the aircraft is efficiently utilised.
This strongly depends on passenger habits, a factor that will undoubtedly
change once the first services are established and demand grows. Subtle factors,
such as the apparent difference in usage patterns displayed by passengers
in different parts of the world, need to be properly understood and factored
into the creation of a commercial service. Passenger usage is, in turn, driven
by developments in mobile telephony and the computer industry. For example,
the take-up of 802.11 (Wi-Fi) or the convergence of mobile telephones, PDAs
and laptop computers, will strongly influence the technical design of wireless
services in aircraft.