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Hot Topic: Panasonic In-flight Connectivity Initiatives are Go!   

In a bid to step up in-flight connectivity, Panasonic is pushing ahead with offerings in Direct Broadcast TV, Laptop Connectivity, and In-Flight Telephony. The first two solutions will be Ku-Band-based and the latter uses L-Band in conjunction with AeroMobile (from ARINC). Originally these services were to be offered when Panasonic garnered 500 plane orders, however, that milestone is no longer a requirement and the order book is filling up. Airline passengers have been feeling the void (and in some cases, Internet Envy) from the dissolution of the Connexion By Boeing service. In Boeing's own focus groups pointed out the benefit of email onboard. They reported that 89% of their study respondents wanted to "catch up on email" during long flights.

Cedric Rhodes, Panasonic point man for the marketing of these services told IFExpress, "We definitely have seen the results of the CBB vacuum an that is one reason why we pressed ahead for our airline customers". Thusly, Panasonic has honed their offering to interface with their "eX" suite of IFE and will be offering - Internet access, email and IM services thru eXconnect via Ku Band and to a new antenna (Starling) on aircraft and distribution via Wi-Fi. Yes, they have a team working the international licensing of the 802.xx Band. IPTV will also be an offering via Ku-Band and Panasonic has stepped up to direct broadcast TV as well as live text and video news. Lastly, Panasonic has teamed with ARINC to deliver the fabled mobile phone connectivity of voice, SMS, GPRS and 3G services under their AeroMobile standard. We understand Panasonic has a large initiative and this may be one of their key new business areas as the jet IFE business becomes a mature market.

To get a better feel for the telephony side we contacted David Coiley of AeroMobile and he said:

"We have seen tremendous interest from a number of airlines in that region and elsewhere - things are certainly heating up! Further to the commitment from Emirates and the start of the evaluation service with Qantas in April this year, there is clearly recognition of the maturity of the technology. The AeroMobile-Panasonic solution is able to operate over all current and future Inmarsat and Ku-band satcom systems. The starting point is today's Inmarsat 'Classic' (Aero-H/H+) and Swift64 services supporting voice calls, text messaging and GPRS data - the latter (using the Inmarsat Swift64 capability) allows us to support BlackBerry and similar 'push email' and web access applications. AeroMobile will operate over Inmarsat SwiftBroadband and Ku-band as soon as these systems are available on customer aircraft. We plan to release more feedback on the Qantas evaluation (note the terminology 'evaluation' not 'trial') in the very near future - stay tuned!"

We should also point out that Panasonic sees tremendous value in the connected airplane. We once described aircraft operations as the worst connected node in the airline global area network and obviously there are problems to solve and money to be made by looking beyond passengers. Mr. Rhode cites the need for constant communication to items like Electronic Flight Bag, engine sensors and logs, uploaded weather data, maintenance/Bite data, along with the normal distribution and retrieval of airborne media and pax data. Airline communications such as PMF, CDL, Pax re-accommodation and a myriad of airline business data transfers can be beneficiary of low cost-per-bit charges at Ku-Band. It looks like the relationship with ARINC, as well as other, will pay off real dividends in the future.

If you want to learn more about the new connectivity services at Panasonic, check out the Panasonic-Cedric Rhodes presentation to the WAEA TC.
 

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