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By Graham Dunn2021-04-30T15:08:00+01:00
Panasonic Avionics is highlighting a greater propensity for passengers to stream content as one of the learnings from a recent airline trial offering unlimited Wi-Fi connectivity on board.
The trail offering passengers unlimited Wi-Fi access, using Panasonic’s Ku-band satellite connectivity service, was carried out in conjunction with a major airline late last year across more than 100 aircraft.
Source: Panasonic Avionics
Connectivity specialist Panasonic notes that passengers watched an average of 41 more minutes of streamed content and that data consumption almost doubled from an average of 1.6GB before the trial to 3GB.
Panasonic Avionics’ vice-president of In-Flight Connectivity services, Jeff Sare, describes the initiative as more of an “extended demonstration” than a trial.
Inmarsat is positioning GDC Technics’ new inflight connectivity terminal – with ThinKom’s Ka VICTS phased-array antenna – as not just an integral part of its GX+ North America regional IFC collaboration with Hughes Network Systems, but a global solution for GX Aviation transmissions.
As such, VICTS – as part of the GDC terminal – is poised to directly compete with Honeywell JetWave. (Note that Honeywell’s original exclusive rights to distribute the onboard hardware for users to connect to GX appear to have been renegotiated when Honeywell was named a GX value added reseller
“In addition to [Honeywell] JetWave, we have also been working with ThinKom and GDC to develop a next-generation terminal that is lightweight, low drag and boasts one of the highest reliability rates in the market. When combined with the latest next generation modems, it consistently delivers far higher speeds than other solutions on the market, even over the world’s busiest airspaces,” sai