The European Aviation Network is a hybrid-network built by

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom was ...

and Inmarsat in cooperation with their technological partner

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

. It is used as a backhaul for in-flight

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...

for domestic flights within

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and contains a LTE ground network supported by a satellite connection. Because of the LTE technology the network can achieve data rates up to 75 Mbit/s downstream and 20 Mbit/s upstream per airplane, with a total capacity of 50Gbps. EAN Standorte EU

History

The European Aviation Network was first announced in 2015 by Deutsche Telekom and Inmarsat. At this point, the technological partner was still unknown. In 2017, Inmarsat launched the satellite for the network with an Ariane 5 rocket into the orbit and began shortly after with the testing. In January 2018 the three companies announced the commercial launch with the International Airlines Group as launch partner.

Technology

The ground network contains 300 LTE

cell site A cell site, cell tower, or cellular base station is a cellular-enabled mobile device site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed (typically on a radio mast, tower, or other raised structure) to create a cell, or adj ...

s, which are spread across the 27 member states of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

. The custom EAN technology is adapted to the usage with

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...

, supporting

ground speed Ground speed is the horizontal speed of an aircraft relative to the Earth’s surface. It is vital for accurate navigation that the pilot has an estimate of the ground speed that will be achieved during each leg of a flight. An aircraft diving ve ...

s up to 1,200 km/h - way above the 500 km/h supported by LTE - and a maximum

flight level In aviation and aviation meteorology, a flight level (FL) is an aircraft's altitude at standard air pressure, expressed in hundreds of feet. The air pressure is computed assuming an International Standard Atmosphere pressure of 1013.25 ...

(User height) of 12 km and the cell radius of up to 75 km. The

remote radio head A remote radio head (RRH), also called a remote radio unit (RRU) in wireless networks, is a remote radio transceiver that connects to an operator radio control panel via electrical or wireless interface. When used to describe aircraft radio cockpit ...

s inside the aircraft have been modified to compensate the frequency shift caused by the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who ...

. If the ground network is not available, e.g. over the sea, a satellite back-up takes over the connection. The aircraft are equipped with antennas on top (for the satellite connection) and at the bottom (for the EAN ground connection) of their

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

in order to support the network. Deutsche Telekom uses LTE frequency band 65 (2,100 MHz) for their ground network and Inmarsat the

S band The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the conventi ...

satellite spectrum over Europe. The LTE network is completely independent and not linked with the national cell phone networks operated by DT group. It’s the first and only pan-European LTE network. The network uses the MCC/MNC tuple 901-53 assigned by the ITU to Deutsche Telekom.

Adoption

Airlines that already support the EAN on some aircraft: *

Aegean Airlines Aegean Airlines S.A. ( el, Αερογραμμές Αιγαίου Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία ''Aeroporía Aigaíou Anónimi Etairía'', ) is the flag carrier airline of Greece and the largest Greek airline by total number of passengers carr ...

Aer Lingus Aer Lingus ( ; an anglicisation of the Irish , meaning "air fleet" compare Welsh 'llynges awyr') is the flag carrier of Ireland. Founded by the Irish Government, it was privatised between 2006 and 2015 and it is now a wholly owned subsidiar ...

(IAG) *

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...

(IAG) *

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese language, Aragonese and Occitan language, Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a pe ...

(IAG) *

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding ...

Vueling Vueling S.A. is a Spanish low-cost airline based at El Prat de Llobregat in Greater Barcelona with hubs at Barcelona–El Prat Airport (main), Paris-Orly Airport in Paris, France and Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy (sec ...

(IAG)

References

External links

Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier

European Aviation Network
{{Deutsche Telekom Telecommunications infrastructure Deutsche Telekom Nokia