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The demand for in-flight
broadband connectivity
is driving equipment
requirements for Iridium,
Inmarsat and Ku-band
satellite services
By Bernard Fitzsimons
The aeronautical satellite communications
field, long dominated
by Inmarsat, has seen Iridium
grow at a rapid rate to become
the most widely used network.
But the race to restore the Ku-band connectivity
once offered to airlines by Boeing’s
Connexion service is still some way
from the finish line.
The attraction of the 10.7-14.5 GHz
Ku-band is, of course, the higher band-
width it offers compared with the 1.5-1.7
GHz L-band used by Inmarsat, and the
consequent potential for enhanced inflight
entertainment (IFE) options. IFE
major Panasonic Avionics Corp., which
has been working toward Ku-band provision
since the demise of Connexion in
2006, says its eXConnect service will offer
data rates “comparable to ground public
WiFi hotspots.”
Services it will support include virtual
private network (VPN), live TV, shop-
28 Avionics Magazine September 2008 www.avtoday.com/av
Photo courtesy Inmarsat
Artist rendering of Inmarsat I-4 satellite
used for SwiftBroadband service. Two I-4
satellites were in service; a third was to
be launched into orbit in mid-August.
ping, streaming media and telemedicine,
along with operational applications.
Panasonic Avionics has opted to use
satellite operator Intelsat’s GlobalConnex
network as the space segment of eXConnect
and a satellite modem licensed from
iDirect Technology, of Herndon, Va.
In July, iDirect and Panasonic Avionics
announced an agreement whereby
Panasonic will license iDirect’s satellite IP
router technology as a core component of
eXConnect.

“The core capabilities for in-flight
broadband have existed for years, but
until recently they were far too inefficient
and costly for airlines to operate profitably,”
said David Bettinger, chief technology
officer of iDirect.
Panasonic Avionics also selected the
MIJET antenna from Israel’s Starling
Advanced Technology, but has since
sought performance enhancements and
said the choice of antenna supplier was
still open. Initial user fee targets on international
flights were $11 per hour or $22
per flight.
In February, Starling signed an agreement
with the Defense & Space Systems
division of EMS Technologies, of Norcross,
Ga., whose antennas are used
by JetBlue and other airlines to receive
LiveTV broadcasts, to develop a new Kuband
antenna for the U.S. airline market.
Weighing 45 pounds and measuring 30
inches in diameter and six inches high, the
antenna is designed to combine very high
data rates with ease of installation aboard
both wide- and narrow-body aircraft.
“The agreement reflects the increasing
demand in the United States for reliable
and cost-effective airborne broadband
antenna systems for airlines,”said Micha
Lawrence, founder and CEO of Starling.
That demand in the United States is
prompting several companies to develop
their own airborne satcom systems.
Row 44, of Westlake Village, Calif.,
says its system will provide downlink data
rates averaging 30 Mbps, with a maximum
of 620 Kbps in the uplink direction.
The system will support full Internet
access, VoIP and cell phone roaming, plus
live Internet protocol TV. The enabling
equipment is designed to weigh less than
150 pounds and be installed in two overnights,
with the aircraft back in service on
the day in between. The vendor had lined
up a single-aircraft trial with Alaska Airlines
and a four-aircraft evaluation with
Southwest Airlines.
AeroSat, of Amherst, N.H., is developing
the antenna and high-power
amplifier (HPA). Mounted above the
ceiling liner inside the pressure hull and
connected to the antenna via two coaxial
cables, the HPA amplifies the transmit
RF signal emanating from a modem data
unit (MDU), up-converting the 950-1450
MHz intermediate frequency (IF) signal
to the 14.0-14.50 GHz RF signal, and
delivers inbound data to the MDU in IF
frequencies of 850-1000 MHz.
Two other boxes are collocated with
the HPA. A server management unit
(SMU) switches Ethernet data from
peripherals in the aircraft cabin to a set
of off-board transceivers, and an antenna
control unit uses position and movement
data received via an aircraft interface
to point the antenna at the appropriate
satellite. AP Labs, of San Diego, which
is supplying the MDU and SMU, started
certification testing in January.
The final element of the system is
one or more cabin wireless LAN units
‘We are swiftly gaining
market share and
establishing Iridium
service as the industry’s
gold standard.’
— Don Thoma
Iridium Satellite
to provide the 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi environment.
Row 44 says the system can also be
integrated with wireless or seat-back IFE
systems that support Internet browsing.
A newer company in the field, QEST
Quantenelektronische Systeme GmbH,
of Holzgerlingen, Germany, unveiled a
combined Ku-/L-band antenna in 2007.
Intended to use the higher data rate
Rendering of Iridium spacecraft,
one of 66 low-earth orbiting satellites
providing global coverage.
medium for data to the aircraft and the
L-band for return traffic, it weighs 33
pounds in fuselage mount configuration
and 22 pounds in tail-mounted form.
Satellite service providers have yet to
implement the processing of mixed band
signals, however, so QEST, a company
of the automotive Draxlmaier Group,
has followed up with a bi-directional
Ku-band design intended for near-term
applications. Both use a cryoelectronic
ultra-low noise amplifier.
“As all QEST antennas are based on a
modular concept, the realization will be
easier and faster than it typically would
be for a new design,” said QEST chief
technology officer Jörg Oppenländer.
“This will also ease the adaptation of the
antennas to the requirements of different
satellite operators and system providers.”
The other current supplier of aeronautical
Ku-band antennas is ViaSat, of
Carlsbad, Calif., whose hardware, including
“ArcLight” spread spectrum modems,
is used for the business jet-oriented
SKYLink service that ARINC Direct
launched in 2006.
By June, 75 aircraft had been commissioned
to use SKYLink, whose coverage
extends from North America across the
North Atlantic to Europe and south to
the Caribbean, Central America and
northern South America.
Last year, Rockwell Collins, which
used SKYLink to replace the Connexion
by Boeing service it had offered to busi-
www.avtoday.com/av September 2008 Avionics Magazine 29
Photo courtesy Iridium

ness jet operators under the eXchange
brand, acquired the SKYLink product
line and now markets it as “eXchange
with service by SKYLink.” Aimed primarily
at large cabin business jets such as
the Gulfstream G550, Dassault Falcon
7X and Bombardier Global Express, it
has also been installed on at least one
Cessna Citation X.
The SKYLink service transmits data
to the aircraft at up to 3.5 Megabit/sec
and offers e-mail plus corporate intranet
and Internet access, with options for
global voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)
telephony and videoconferencing.
In June, ARINC reported up to 50
aircraft were logging on simultaneously
in North America, five-to-10 during the
business day in Europe and more than 50
each month on the North Atlantic.
“The real value [of the system] comes
if you’re using it over time, and if you’re
30 Avionics Magazine September 2008 www.avtoday.com/av
Photo courtesy ICG
International Communications Group
NxtLink 120A Iridium communications
system supports FANS, CPDLC and
ACARS requirements. The system incorporates
two Iridium transceivers with an
internal Cabin Telcommunications Unit.
a high bandwidth user, you’re going to
save money,” commented Andrew Mohr,
Rockwell Collins director of cabin systems
marketing.
Inmarsat Broadband
Like its rival SITA’s AIRCOM service,
ARINC’s GLOBALink air transport service
has been used with successive Inmarsat
offerings — Classic, the 64 kbit/sec
Swift64 and now the 432 kbit/sec Swift-
Broadband — as the satcom element.
Inmarsat is currently deploying its
fourth generation of satellites. Two I-4
satellites were in service and a third was
scheduled to launch in August. The satcom
provider last year ordered an additional,
higher-capacity Alphasat I-XL
satellite from EADS Astrium to augment
its Broadband Global Area Network
(BGAN) service.
SwiftBroadband is the medium
for a new cell phone service from the
SITA/Airbus joint venture, OnAir, and
ARINC/Telenor’s AeroMobile service.
Both use Inmarsat as the link between
aircraft and ground, with on-board pico
cells to control cell phone power levels.
AeroMobile customers Emirates Airline
and Qantas have both committed to
fleetwide fits, and the company also has
announced programs with Saudia, Turkish
Airlines and three other carriers.
OnAir has been trialed by Air France,
with further evaluations scheduled by
bmi and TAP Portugal. Also, as of June,
it was nearing a service launch with Rya-

Avionica satLINK
system provides
Iridium-based
data commu-
Avionica
nications. The
unit is installed
on Continental
courtesy
737-800s and other
Boeing aircraft. Photo
32 Avionics Magazine September 2008 www.avtoday.com/av
nair. It also has contracts with AirAsia,
AirAsia X, Jazeera Airlines, Kingfisher
Airlines, Oman Air, Royal Jordanian,
Shenzhen Airlines and an unnamed European
low-fare operator.
The introduction of cell phone services
has provoked much controversy. In
the United States, the use of cell phones
on board an aircraft is prohibited by the
Federal Communications Commission
and FAA. The reality, though, is turning
out to be less fraught with problems than
critics had predicted.
Emirates, long the most consistent
supporter of Inmarsat-based on-board
telephony, continues to see more than
6,000 calls a month on that system.
Beginning in April, when it launched
the AeroMobile service commercially, the
airline had “no complaints or incidents,”
said Patrick Brannelly, Emirates vice
president of passenger communications
and IFE, speaking at the Inmarsat user
conference in June.
Passengers on the inaugural flight
“just switched on their phones and got on
with it,” Brannelly said.
There has been no sign of the predicted
air rage, and Brannelly said he did not
expect many long conversations taking
place at international roaming rates. The
longest call on the first flight was 4.5 minutes,
and on a typical A340-500 flight, the
average is 2.5 minutes. There have been
twice as many incoming as outgoing calls,
and four times as many text messages as
voice calls.
Emirates, which plans to equip its
entire fleet by the end of next year, has
“not scratched the surface yet in terms
of what we can do with these services,”
Brannelly added.
He said he expects GPRS-capable
devices such as the BlackBerry, for which
support will be offered by the end of the
year, to kill off other approaches to data
communications, and promised “a lot of
clever things when we have a full fleet fit.”
Resurgent Iridium
Iridium Satellite, based in Bethesda, Md.,
has steadily grown its aeronautical user
base since it started offering mobile communications
in 2001.
The number of subscribers has grown
annually by more than 50 percent over
the last five years, and both ARINC and
SITA now offer Iridium satcom services.
Iridium said it experienced 51 percent
growth in total installed aviation units in
the first quarter of 2008 compared to the

prior-year period. To date, 17,400 aircraft
have Iridium installed.
ARINC launched data and voice services
in 2006, and this year SITA added
an option for aircraft to use Iridium as a
medium for ACARS.
In January, ICAO approved Standards
and Recommended Practices permitting
Iridium Satellite to provide Aeronautical
Mobile Satellite (Route) Services for commercial
aircraft on transoceanic flights.
Several operators whose aircraft fly at
high latitudes where they are beyond the
reach of geostationary satellites already
use Iridium for cockpit communications,
and the company expects the new application
to spur further installations.
The attraction of Iridium, with its
relatively modest data rates of 1.2 or 2.4
kbit/sec, is the lower cost of the avionics
needed to communicate with the constellation’s
low Earth orbit satellites. The
shorter distances over which signals must
travel means there is no need for highgain
antennas and high-power amplifiers.
“In the air transport industry, the big
push right now is looking at Iridium as
the short-term solution for communication
facilities to support FANS, CPDLC,
ATN services ... to permit closer separation
minimums on the congested routes,”
said Armin Jabs, president of International
Communications Group (ICG), of
Newport News, Va.
“Essentially, Iridium right now is at
the forefront that air transport customers
are looking at for installations,” Jabs said.
Both ARINC Direct’s data service and
the GLOBALink voice and data services
use avionics from ICG.
By the time SITA revealed the addition
of Iridium service to a User Group
meeting in May this year, three airlines
had already signed up to use the service.
SITA’s rationale is to extend the reach
of the existing VHF ACARS and to
enable operators who are flying singleaisle
Airbus and Boeing aircraft on routes
that may take them out of VHF coverage
to access the AIRCOM service via the
Iridium network.
“We are swiftly gaining market share
and establishing Iridium services as the
industry’s gold standard,” said Don
Thoma, vice president of marketing for
Iridium.
The avionics also support two-way
voice communications that are of much
better quality than HF radio, according
to SITA. And the fact that Iridium’s
coverage extends over the poles where
Photo courtesy QEST Quantenelektronische Systeme GmbH
Combined Ku, L-band antenna
from Qest of Germany, is
intended to use the higher
data rate medium for data to
the aircraft and L-band for
return traffic. The antenna
weighs 33 pounds in fuselage
mount configuration and 22
pounds in tail-mounted form.
www.avtoday.com/av September 2008 Avionics Magazine 33

Row 44 server
management unit,
part of the satcom
system, installed
on a Boeing 737.
Photo courtesy Row 44
34 Avionics Magazine September 2008 www.avtoday.com/av
the geostationary satellites deployed by
Inmarsat and Intelsat are inaccessible
makes the medium attractive to long-haul
aircraft as well.
By May, Thoma said there were no
fewer than 16,000 Iridium units installed.
In the first quarter of 2008, the number
of installed terminals had grown more
than 50 percent since the equivalent
period last year, while airtime usage for
voice and circuit-switched data was up 46
percent and short-burst data traffic grew
77 percent, according to Iridium.
Miami-based Avionica’s “satLINK”
equipment was the first to be approved by
SITA. The system is installed on Boeing
737, 757 and 767 aircraft, including Continental
Airlines 737-800s.
In March, Avionica announced that
Continental had accomplished the firstever
ACARS communications in regular
commercial service over the Iridium network.
The connection took place between
a satLINK-equipped 737-800 flying over
the Pacific Ocean and Continental’s headquarters
in Houston.
In late July, EMS Technologies
announced plans to spend $15.5 million
to acquire Sky Connect, of Takoma Park,
Md., a provider of satellite-based tracking,
text messaging and telephone systems
for airborne, ground-based and marine
applications. The transaction was aimed
at enabling EMS Technologies to build
an Iridium services-based business for the
commercial and military aviation markets.
“Acquiring Sky Connect complements
EMS’s aero-connectivity strategy
by adding Iridium hardware and services
business targeting the growing general
aviation market,” said EMS Technologies’
President and CEO Paul Domorski.
Several other companies provide Iridium
service to the general aviation market,
Photo courtesy Starling Advanced Communication
MIJET antenna from Starling Advanced
Communications of Israel is a fuselagemounted,
low-profile, bi-directional
Ku-band system enabling data transmission
and reception at broadband rates.

usually in conjunction with proprietary
avionics.
Aircell, Louisville, Colo., which developed
a terrestrial broadband service that
American Airlines is set to trial, offers the
Iridium-based Axxess service. Later this
year, Aircell is due to introduce a Swift-
Broadband option using the Aero-SB Lite
system being developed in partnership
with Denmark’s Thrane & Thrane.
Iridium E-mail
Server Launch
International Communications Group (ICG)
is rolling out an Iridium-based global data
system, which will allow users to access
Wi-Fi-enabled handheld devices, such as
Blackberries and iPhones, for e-mail and
text messaging services.
ICG, Newport News, Va., said the system,
called “NxtMail,” will expand Iridium
services to include office-type capabilities.
The system will also allow satcom
products to be installed on a wider range
of aircraft. The NxtMail server box, which
weighs three pounds, is connected to an
ICG dual-channel Iridium transceiver.
Production of the system was set to
begin in September.
“Frankly we believe this is going to
be a big deal in the industry,” said ICG
President Armin Jabs. “We think this is
going to be huge … for the smaller jets
that can’t put an Inmarsat broadband
service on board.
“With the NxtMail service, you have a
… standalone office. You can use your
Blackberry and you don’t know any difference
between your normal Blackberry
use, whether it’s in your car, your office or
an airplane, as long as it’s Wi-Fi capable.”
ICG said NxtMail will support Web
capabilities, but at a much slower rate
than the broadband speeds promised by
Inmarsat systems. “From what we’re seeing,
people are really looking for e-mail
through personal devices as opposed to
a big pipe to do Web surfing or huge data
transfers,” Jabs said.
“I don’t know if the Swiftbroadband
is enough of an incentive to put Inmarsat
terminals on. Because if you can do
ACARS, datalink services, flight-deck
datalink services, and you can do global
e-mail and you can do several voice channels,
what do you have in an Inmarsat
terminal that would justify the additional
expense, the maintenance costs, the extra
fuel costs for the extra weight?
“The only difference is the higher
bandwidth for Web surfing,” Jabs contended.
—Emily Feliz
www.avtoday.com/av September 2008 Avionics Magazine 35