Emirates offers free Wi-Fi onboard

Dubai based, Emirates is one of the world’s best ranked airlines. It is a subordinate of The emirates groups exclusively owned by the Dubai investment Corporation. Over the years, this well reputed airline has connected the world to Pakistan.

Emirates had the privilege to be the first airline that installed in-seat telephones and on board faxes back in 1995. Even today, Emirates didn’t fail to surprise its customers by yet another breakthrough of its Wi-Fi facility on air.

Everyone wishes to stay connected with their family and friends, especially when travelling to far flung areas that consumes more than 8 hours of one’s time on board. Staying connected is somewhat reassuring for friends and relatives hoping for their safeties and comfort. Although the news of introducing free Wi-Fi to its customers had been floating about for quite some time, Emirates was eventually successful in announcing its very first on air Wi-Fi service on all of its 56 Airbus A380s, as well as on 30 of its Boeing 777s in 2004.

While, on 51 of Emirates’ A380s, the first 10MB of data is free, and a token $1 charge is levied for the next 500MB, Emirates is still making efforts to generalize this retrofit program across its entire fleet.

Today, customers onboard Emirates can connect to Wi-Fi, send emails and messages using their personal ice entertainment system screens, or even use their mobile devices to connect through calls or messages, and though the connecting charge is free of cost, they are still bound to pay $1 for exceeding 500MB of use. Emirates are working hard to overcome this glitch by making the dream of offering free Wi-Fi on air for all of its customers into a reality.

In this pursuit, the Emirates concerned staff claims to have being faced with a myriad of technical limitations from speed and bandwidth availability and cost, to the supporting hardware and software, an issue which is currently being addressed with the company right now with a hope of coming up with a miraculous deal.

This dream if come true could be a huge curtain-raiser in the history of airlines, which would not only elevate Emirates popularity but might also prompt its competitor, Etihad Airways, towards such a step.

Emirate has hired the services of two hardware companies for on-air connectivity operations. One is Panasonic Avionics’ Ku-band satellite-supported Global Communications Service (GCS), other is Onair Internet, L-band-based Swift Broadband service.

Onair is a subsidiary of SITA, launched in 2005 for the purpose of supporting and operating in-flight passenger communication services. This leading in-flight internet provider covers a large number of international airlines across the globe. Some of them are Aeroflot, All Nippon airways, Azal, British airways, Egyptair, Hong Kong airlines, etc.

Panasonic Avionics, an immediate rival of Onair, is a subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation. PAC offers equally competitive on-flight communication and entertainment services. It provides its services to a number of world’s international airlines, some of which are Air Europa, Airberlin, Virgin Atlantic, Etihad airways, etc.