Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite operators OneWeb and SpaceX are shaking things up in aviation, with the former partnering with industry integrators to power inflight connectivity for their airline clients, and the latter offering its service directly to airlines.
But according to inflight entertainment and connectivity giant Panasonic Avionics Corporation (PAC) — which is offering a Ku-band multi-orbit IFC solution featuring both its GEO network and OneWeb’s LEO service — OneWeb is doing something different than SpaceX to ensure there will be a consistency of service for the IFC market when OneWeb formally begins supporting aero this year.
Panasonic Avionics vice president, connectivity business unit John Wade revealed to RGN that: “OneWeb is committing to at least 30% of their network dedicated for mobility. And they’re committing to CIRs [committed information rates].”
“They’re looking at this as an enterprise level service,” he added. “And they are willing to do more than that if necessary.”
There is more than enough LEO capacity to support aero, he noted. “If you start to look at these terabit per second class constellations, which are now up there, and say that at least 30% of that is available, there are multiples of what’s available for the entire IFC fleet over LEO.”
In addition to Panasonic, Intelsat is offering multi-orbit IFC to airlines as powered by its own GEO network and OneWeb service. The satellite operator and aero ISP has secured a several-hundred tail backlog for its electronically steered antenna via deals with American Airlines, Air Canada, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Alaska Airlines.
The power of consistency
One of the things that Wade has learned over his years of being in the IFC industry, and indeed what Panasonic has learned as a leading provider of embedded in-seat inflight entertainment systems, is that, when it comes to passenger satisfaction, consistency is really important.
“And that was one of the surprises to me, that people think they’ve had a better experience if it’s consistent than if it worked great and then didn’t. So that’s one of the things we think is really important as a differentiator,” he said in reference to how he sees OneWeb differentiating from SpaceX’s Starlink.
‘Best effort’ approaches in aero, he said, create “a lot of variability in terms of it is either great or sometimes it isn’t even there”.
“The other thing that Panasonic brings is that we understand the airlines,” continued Wade. “We have been around the airlines for 30-plus years. We know how to work with airlines, we know how to install stuff. We know how to maintain stuff.”
The company’s Irvine facility provides customer support.
“[Y]ou can think of us as a full-service provider,. We approach this not only as a best-in-class IFC system [but] best support. I mean it really is about giving the airlines the experience that they need,” he said, adding:
Thirty-ish years ago you were lucky if you could find a seatback IFE system and then suddenly they started becoming common. But if your screen was out and the guy’s next to you wasn’t, you were really not happy. So that really has driven this ethos of every screen has to work on every flight, and it’s the same ethos for everything IFC — that you have IFC working every flight, best-in-class, and understand exactly what’s happening with your network.
Though its embedded IFE boasts remarkable reliability, Panasonic hasn’t always achieved a best-in-class result with IFC. However, its current Ku-band GEO-only service, as supported by a legacy antenna, has improved significantly in recent years, in tandem with the rollout of its Gen 3 network, featuring an ST Engineering iDirect high-throughput modem, and other recent network tweaks, as revealed by Wade. It will use an electronically steered antenna for its new multi-orbit IFC. With that LEO/GEO solution, Panasonic is boldly aiming to deliver best-in-class inflight Wi-Fi.
During the APEX/IFSA Global EXPO in Long Beach, Panasonic’s John Wade showcased the IFEC firm’s new electronically steered antenna, which will support multi-orbit LEO + GEO connectivity and is based on Stellar Blu Solutions’ ESA package. Image: Mary Kirby
Related Articles:
- Free inflight Wi-Fi model gains traction in commercial aviation
- Airbus adds Intelsat and Panasonic as MSPs for supplier-furnished IFC
- Panasonic admits to LEO bias as it pursues multi-orbit IFC
- Intelsat and Panasonic benefit as Airbus expands HBCplus
- OneWeb focuses on B2B aero model; ESAs for Gen 1 and Gen 2 network
Featured image credited to OneWeb
