Saudi Arabian Airlines announced a big connectivity deal with the installation of the ASI’s latest Inmarsat-based connectivity solution on their wide-body fleet. If you remember, Australian connectivity service provider introduced their Freemail concept on Alitalia whereby they provide a packet-data, hi-speed solution to airborne email (via Swift 64) and announced a “one dollar per email” concept – you get the email headers free and then decide if they are worth downloading. The Saudis and ASI have kicked up a notch with the integration of a ground-based, 3rd Generation telephony data connectivity. The ASI solution called ASIQNet, adds a new data server connected to the dual Honeywell MCS 6000 SATCOM’s. A cabin control box adds the 432KBps cell-based wireless connection on the ground, hardwired to the server as well. ASIQNet integrates the 128K SATCOM data in the air and the 3G inputs when the plane lands. E-mail, SMS and Internet in the air and who knows what will be streamed over the speedy ground wireless link to the Panasonic IFE system! Passengers with laptops will logon over a RJ-11 network on the plane (at each seat, eventually). However, we find it interesting that the system is also BGAN-ready because the signal format of the wireless data (432KBps and 128KBps) designed to be updated easily when higher speeds, Inmarsat, SATCOM’s arrive later. The ASIQNet development with Saudia has had some 3 years of installation, test, and certification on a B747-400. There is one plane is up and running with the service today. The Saudis will now be able to offer fixed price (per flight) connectivity services to their fliers and are possibly the first to install this kin of dual wireless connectivity for passengers. More interesting to IFExpress is the 3G network connection that the Saudi planes will connect to in Italy, Germany, France, and England. This network is capable of full-motion, MPEG 4 video….you connect the dots! As other airlines hookup to ASI’s concept in Europe, there will be quite a sizeable data upload operation. We also understand that a data service provider (SITA, etc) has not been chosen so this ought to get interesting for IFE vendors, for airlines, for connectivity competitors, for data service providers and for passengers. The bottom line: if airlines with SATCOM’s can get into connectivity with the addition of a couple of boxes and a laptop network, we want to buy some ASI stock!