Virgin eyes in-flight connectivity

Virgin Atlantic has signed a $70 million deal with Panasonic Avionics to build an in-flight entertainment and connectivity system on its 10 new Airbus A330-300s, states Flight Global.

The company also intends to fit Panasonic's eXPhone systems to its current Boeing 747s and offer the solutions on its future Boeing 787 twinjets.

Virgin Atlantic CEO, Steve Ridgeway, says: “Ultimately, what we want to do with Panasonic over the next three years is to enable passengers to use their devices on board, whether it's their laptops, iPads, iPhones and BlackBerrys.”

Nokia Siemens Networks has integrated its microwave backhaul system with cell site and aggregation routers from Cisco to boost mobile backhaul capacity, says The Wall Street Journal.

Nokia Siemens Networks and Cisco have a strategic alliance that aims to accelerate the convergence of networks, services, and applications.

The combined all-IP backhaul solution has completed full interoperability testing and can be provided directly by Nokia Siemens Networks.

Orange Business Services has joined the VMware vCloud initiative, which enables cloud computing providers to develop a common platform for cloud interoperability, reports Connected Planet Online.

“The main point of cloud computing is to bring more flexibility to enterprises, enabling them to use what they need, when they need it, at optimised and variable costs,” says Didier Jaubert, senior vice-president, global services, Orange Business Services.

According to Orange, flexible computing provides scalable hosted and virtualised infrastructures, accessed either over an Orange Business Services VPN or over the Internet, that allow businesses to outsource a part or all of their IT infrastructures.