Airline passenger news and views

Gulf Air will be the first carrier to offer the new Panasonic entertainment system "Sky Hub", which allows in-flight internet broadband.

Gulf Air is the principal airline of the Kingdom of Bahrain and has just announced that its new Airbus A330-200 will offer to costumer full broadband connectivity to access internet, mobile phone services and a live television service.

"Sky Hub" comes from Panasonic Avionics Corporation, which has developed a revolutionary entertainment software called "Global Communication Suite".

With Sky Hub will be possible to watch live TV program in streaming while flying and also to use the VOIP system. VOIP means "Voice On Internet Protocol" and it is the system used by Skype, which allows to make phone calls using the internet.

The Wi-Fi line will work at a speed of around 50mbps, the same that we usually have have at home, which is enough to do almost everything on-line. Flying during a football match, or while waiting an important e-mail, wont be a problem any more. On the other hand we will have to stand long phone calls from our fellow travellers, as it happens already on trains.

Costumers will be allowed to use their own mobile phones, tablets and lap-tops. They will just have to connect with Deutsche Telekom, the internet service provider on board, and then to surf the web as they wish.

Whether this is not enough, "Sky Hub" will support the first in-flight live TV satellite stream across continents. Channel like BBC World News, or Euronews, will deliver their contents live on flying carriers for the first time in history.

Any big airline will try to offer Sky Hub as soon as they can and some of them have already announced their commitment, including Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand, and Turkish Airlines.

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