Emirates Airlines says it plans to test satellite based internet service on its A380 double-deck, wide-body jets.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

This month, Qantas is partnering with a company called OnAir to test satellite-based Internet service aboard flights from Australia to Los Angeles.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

If that mission is successful, then we might start seeing the backbone of a satellite-based, secure, quantum Internet.

FORBES: Physicists Quantum Teleport Photons Over 88 Miles

From broadband Internet to latest-generation wireless technologies, from aeronautical and maritime navigation to radio astronomy and satellite-based meteorology, from convergence in fixed-mobile phone, Internet access, data, voice and TV broadcasting to next-generation networks, ITU is committed to connecting the world.

UNESCO: Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster Responses

They could soon be enjoying vast new fortunes, showered from above by cheap satellite-based digiphones from Iridium, Qualcomm, Teledesic and others -- each phone with an Internet address.

FORBES: Digital rules

These various compressed formats then support the growing number of distribution channels from traditional cable, satellite, broadcast and digital cinema and increasingly are finding their way into various internet and cell phone network based distribution channels.

FORBES: Lights, Cameras and Digital Storage

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), based in Guildford, England, is teaming up with Nasa to show that standard internet protocols can be used to communicate with spacecraft.

BBC: Earth orbit gets wired