Aeronautical satellite communications provider Inmarsat previewed its forthcoming SwiftBroadband service on its stand (C703) at the Dubai Air Show. SwiftBroadband is Inmarsat's next-generation aeronautical service that will offer inflight voice and data connectivity at up to 432kbps per channel, for use by both passengers and aircraft crew.

The live demonstration at the show used the first Inmarsat-4 satellite located over the Indian Ocean and came less than two weeks after the launch of the second Inmarsat-4 satellite, which is currently undergoing in-orbit tests before being positioned over the Americas. It also followed the successful demonstration of AeroMobile's inflight GSM service on a Boeing 777-200LR, which uses the Inmarsat network.

"This is a very exciting time," commented Lars Ringertz, head of marketing for aeronautical services at Inmarsat. "We have seen tremendous growth of our Swift64 service in the last two years, the launch of two new satellites in 2005, several exciting announcements from partners OnAir and AeroMobile about inflight GSM services and now we are starting to preview SwiftBroadband to an eager audience of aeronautical users."

The first SwiftBroadband system will take to the air during next year, and the service is expected to become commercially available before the end of 2006.