By Pamela Weaver

Deutsche Telekom and German airline Lufthansa have become the first operators to offer up to 5Mbps broadband access in-flight. The service, launched commercially this month in conjunction with Panasonic Avionics, was trialled in December when, according to Deutsche Telekom, average data volumes of 2.35Gb and 250Mb were downloaded and uploaded respectively per flight. Lufthansa was the first airline to offer broadband access on intercontinental flights; currently available on North Atlantic routes, the FlyNet service will be available on almost the entire long-haul network by the end of 2011.