This week is a critical week for in-flight connectivity. At two major events – SmartPlane in Paris and Connected Aircraft E-enablement in London – experts across the industry will discuss what’s next as airlines look to improve network quality, expand services to new applications and lower their costs.
Today, airlines are demanding greater business value from their onboard networks. So, they’re expanding connectivity beyond just passenger Wi-Fi to transform their entire aircraft operations.
However, this new vision of the “connected aircraft” presents a whole new challenge for airlines and their in-flight service providers. It equates to managing a global wireless network in the sky that serves a much broader suite of applications and end users.
When evaluating the right in-flight communications solution, airlines need to consider their long-term plans for a broad range of applications across their fleet and service territory. And it will involve big changes: rewriting the business case, upgrading technology and running a much more complex network.
Yet, the reward is huge. Those airlines that can best leverage in-flight connectivity will gain a clear business advantage in terms of customer loyalty, crew productivity and company profitability.
That’s why iDirect has just issued a paper on the subject: A Higher Plane: Boarding the Next Journey for In-Flight Connectivity, which spells out key innovations to address these challenges:
- Bringing HTS capacity onboard in the immediate future, while developing a long-term plan to integrate capacity across all orbits.
- Improving how airlines share bandwidth across their entire fleet and myriad applications
- How regional airlines can adopt inter-provider roaming agreements to economically and quickly expand their service areas.
- Adopting ground-breaking new flat-panel antennas design and software-defined aero modems to lower their capital and operating costs.
The paper provides an overview of iDirect’s latest aero solution. Learn what makes us unique and what is driving our focus on innovation to help transform in-flight connectivity for much broader adoption, from the leading modem provider for the aero market (source: NSR 53% of modem market share.