Thales, SES to offer broadband for air passengers

Europe’s largest satellite-services provider and the region’s leading aircraft-electronics maker are teaming up to offer enhanced broadband-via-satellite connections to airline passengers. After months of negotiations and decisions to scale back their initial plans, France’s Thales SA and Luxembourg-based SES SA, with a global fleet of more than 50 satellites, on Monday will announce they are jointly entering the already crowded field of companies marketing such high-bandwith links. By 2020, the partners hope to leapfrog competitors with a powerful new satellite designed specifically for efficient and low-cost cabin connectivity to airliners flying across the US, Latin America and busy trans-Atlantic routes. For passengers, the service aims to be “the equivalent of what you have at home with fiber connectivity,” Thales Chief Executive Patrice Caine said in an interview. That would include streaming movies in high definition, videogames and live television. But two entrenched rivals, London-based Inmarsat PLC and ViaSat Inc. of Carlsbad, Calif., already have or soon will have significant capacity in orbit to serve the same fast-growing segment—and both can build on longstanding relationships with certain carriers. Current competitors also rely on capable satellites designed for global connectivity. Thales and SES likely won’t be able to match such coverage until at least the middle of the next decade, even if they opt to invest in additional satellites.<br/>