Lufthansa is proud of its history of being the first airline to ever offer Internet access on long haul flights, all the way back in 2003, when we all still thought flying on a commercial plane was exciting. Due to their satellite Internet supplying partner's demise, the company stopped offering the service in 2006.

Since 2010, the service has been back online (pun intended) on long haul flights. Lufthansa has now announced that broadband Internet service will be gradually introduced on all European flights as well. 

The company is saying that it will be using a combination of satellites from Inmarsat's Global Xpress network and LTE service provided from the ground by Deutsche Telekom, the owners of the T Mobile brand. It is not entirely clear how this combination of ground and satellite services will work exactly, but Lufthansa is promising Internet access experience equal to that available at home. 

We have a 120 Mbps fiber-optic link at home, and we doubt that such speeds will be achievable, but even 4 Mbps would be impressive. Also, the pricing will definitely not be comparable to quite affordable European fixed broadband. We don't have the specifics on the pricing at this point, though.

Another interesting thing to note is that, while the customers will be able to connect their phones to a GSM cell in the sky and send and receive SMS messages, call will not be enabled. Lufthansa says that this is not beacuse of any technical limitations but in response to customer research. We shudder at the thought of in-flight calls becoming available, as much as that is inevitable sooner or later.

In any case, a very interesting and positive development on Lufthansa's part.