SES (Betzdorf, Luxembourg) will book $49 million into its third-quarter 2006 revenues, and the remainder as part of revenues for Q4 2006. The Ku-band that was leased to Boeing for the fledgling on-board wireless networking service is being remarketed, and the operator says it has lined up a variety of potential customers.

Boeings broadband in the sky never took off despite receiving good reviews from users. None of the large U.S. carriers signed up for the service while a few international carriers such as Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, and Singapore Airlines started offering a limited service that will now have to cease by the end of the year.

Industry analysts believe that the Chicago-based aviation giant invested as much as $1 billion to develop Connexion, which at its onset, in 2000, was seen as a major revenue-generator for the airlines and the aircraft maker. But it relied on costly satellites which made the service expensive, and had difficulties getting FCC approval.

The failure of Connexion also impacted Colubris Networks, one of the main equipment suppliers for the service.

Other, less expensive ground-to-air based in-flight WiFi options are being developed to replace Connexion. For instance JetBlue Airways received valuable wireless licenses for $7 million in an FCC auction that could be used for passenger communications.