The World Of Aviation

Malaysia Airlines has been trialling AeroMobile's mobile phone and data services over the last few weeks, garnering the distinction of becoming the first carrier in Asia to offer such services.

The AeroMobile system was installed on a Malaysia Boeing 777-200 aircraft during a routine maintenance check.

Malaysia Airlines managing director and CEO Dato Seri Idris Jala says the trial will be conducted to gauge passenger behaviour and acceptability. "If the evaluation findings are positive, we aim to roll out the system throughout the remainder of our widebody aircraft fleet next year."

I asked AeroMobile to send along a photo of its equipment installed on a 777.

The image below shows part of the installation (three of the six boxes), installed on the 'E7 rack' in the crown of the aircraft cabin above the ceiling panels.

The AeroMobile equipment (three avionics units in this shot) is the equipment to the left of the orange boxes. The two thick black cables are the 'leaky feeder' ('radiating RF cables') which are installed down both sides of the full length of the aircraft cabin providing a signal to passengers' mobile phones