Jet It currently operates Gogo connectivity systems on its HondaJet aircraft and will be installing Gogo Light Jet AVANCE L3 connectivity platform on the remainder of its 26 aircraft fleet including every new Phenom 300 aircraft.
Satcom Direct completed the installation of the first Plane Simple® Ka-band antenna on the company’s Gulfstream G550. The prototype terminal, consisting of only two line-replaceable units (LRUs) – the tail-mount antenna and SD Modem Unit – is testing the advanced technology hardware’s compatibility with Inmarsat’s Jet ConneX inflight broadband service.
With the addition of the G450, Viasat’s Ka-band connectivity system is now available on more than twenty platforms ranging from super mid-size and large cabin to most of long range business jets. Viasat’s Wi-Fi solution enables similar connectivity onboard as experienced on the ground.
The Stellar Blu fuselage-mounted, Electronically Steered Array (ESA) terminal is designed to retrofit executive airliners to support a full suite of connectivity services. Satcom Direct will be responsible for selling and activating the airtime, customer service, cybersecurity monitoring and additional value-added services associated with airtime plans to Sidewinder terminal customers
With a 150-Site Network, the new 5G network now covers the contiguous United States and will expand into Canada beginning in 2023. Gogo 5G is expected to deliver ~25 Mbps on average, with peak speeds in the 75-80 Mbps range, and has been designed to deliver high throughput with very low latency.
Targeted for certification in 2023, the next generation of JetWave will feature multinetwork, multiconstellation capability, as well as speeds up to 100 megabits per second. More than 3,000 operators around the globe already utilize JetWave for their in-flight connectivity
Twenty-five years ago engineer Jim Jensen started Satcom Direct from a beach house on the Florida coast, with just six colleagues. His mission: to transparently connect business aircraft in flight, to the ground. He had spotted a growing gap in aviation communications noting that existing systems enabling phone calls between jets and callers necessitated multiple companies, generating numerous bills, from locations all around the world, and even then connection to the right person wasn’t guaranteed. The system was untenable.
Satcom Direct announced the qualification of the Satcom Direct Plane Simple™ Antenna System on the Intelsat FlexExec network in January this year. The verification follows months of diligent testing and optimization by both companies and confirms that the first network integrated SD Plane Simple terminal, designed exclusively for business aviation, is fully compatible with the world’s first dedicated network capacity for business aviation, the Intelsat FlexExec service.
SES and Collins have raised the bar for inflight connectivity. LuxStream is proven and deployed across a number of business jet fleets in the US and around the world, with Vista Global carrying out the first LuxStream installations.
Although the global aviation industry is facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the global pandemic, the business aviation sector has fared comparatively better than its airline counterpart. A prime example of its resilience is the fact that many of Inmarsat’s business aviation customers have utilised any downtime over the past 18 months to upgrade their inflight connectivity systems, ensuring that they continue to meet the evolving needs of operators across the world, not only during the COVID-19 pandemic itself but well into the future too. And as principals’ needs continue to evolve in the long-term, they can rest assured in the knowledge that we are investing more than ever before to deliver highly differentiated global technology platforms, that will meet their needs today and for decades to come. After all, we have a deep understanding based on decades of experience in the business aviation market and appreciate that inflight connectivity alone is no longer enough, it needs to be reliable and consistent, regardless of location, time or other uncontrollable factors. Predictability is ‘the new luxury’ for business aviation.
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