Aircraft Maintenance Technology - 15

-Fi on the ground isn't the same as in the
air. The Wi-Fi in a person's home refers,
generally, to a specific family of wireless
network protocols used for the local networking of devices and internet access.
In a jet, Wi-Fi stands simply for wireless
communication.
"People sometimes generalize that we put 'Wi-Fi' in the airplanes. In aviation, Wi-Fi is really just a wireless connection to an
access point and then the ability to get on a network," explained
David Salvador, vice president of aftermarket channel sales, Gogo
Business Aviation.
There are two forms of connectivity in aviation today, air-toground (ATG) and satellite. Gogo is the only provider offering
ATG connectivity, Salvador said. While satellite connectivity is
available from a handful of providers who use Ka- and Ku-bands
as the two staple options.
The difference between the options comes down to three key
things, James Person, senior director of business development
for Viasat's Business Aviation division, said.
"It's cost, coverage and capacity of the network, which translates
to speed for the user," he said.
There are, of course, differences between ATG networks and satellite networks, with advantages and drawbacks to both. Finding
the right fit for an aircraft is dependent on the type and size of the
aircraft and its mission - where it will most often be flying and
what the passengers onboard will be wanting out of their Wi-Fi.
For satellite, the Ku-band is the older of the two and uses lower
frequencies than Ka-bands, giving Ka-bands a leg up when it
comes to bandwidth. Though there's more to deciding what to
equip an aircraft with than bandwidth alone.
John Peterson, vice president and general manager of software
and services at Honeywell Forge, said there are two areas people
and their planes fall into.
"There are two things that an aircraft owner is looking for.
One is entertainment and two is productivity," said Peterson.
"Your productivity customers, the time on the aircraft is time to
be spent getting caught up and keeping the business running.
Your entertainment customers, they're people who get on the
aircraft and it's leisure time for them, or they travel with family
and they want to stream. So, their needs are quite a bit different,
both in terms of the amount of speed they want and the amount
of spectrum they need."
For example, a larger aircraft with a global mission and highproductivity passengers, Peterson said a Ka-band connection,
such as Honeywell's JetWave system, is the right choice.
"They know that no matter where that aircraft is in the world,
no matter what time of day it is, it is going to work exactly the
same everywhere. And that is very important to a consumer like
that," continued Peterson.
Then for, say, a mid-sized aircraft that will be predominately
flying regionally, such as only in the U.S., an air-to-ground system
may be the right fit, Peterson said.

Air -to-ground systems work in much the same way as a cellphone
does, bouncing signals from the device to towers located on the
ground. Gogo's 4G ATG network provides enough high-bandwidth
for activities such as streaming video, video conferencing, or the
ability to download large files.
"Our ATG network provides continuous coverage of all of the
contiguous United States as well as portions of Canada and Alaska
from 10,000 ft. above the ground level," Salvador said.
L band is another kind of satellite communication, though
older and slower than both Ka- and Ku-bands. L band solutions
are much less expensive than Ka or Ku, and they are smaller and
lighter options, so they can fit on a wider variety of aircraft types.
L-band fits the mission of an operator who wants just a bare bone
communication option.
Honeywell handles everything from L band, Ku- and Ka-band
and air-to-ground, as well as producing routers and the software
powering them.
"There is no one size fits all, we aim to make the passenger connectivity experience a productive or enjoyable one depending on
the aircraft mission," said Chris Moore, president of Satcom Direct
(SD) Business Aviation. "Until recently the conversation has been
about data speed into the aircraft. The conversation now revolves
around what do you want to do with the data and this affects which
system is selected."
SD offers a full range of Wi-Fi solutions for mid- to large-size
cabin aircraft as well as executive airliners, added Moore, and offers
airtime from all the world's leading suppliers including Inmarsat,
Intelsat, Viasat and Iridium.
"We also manufacture the hardware, the SD router series including the SDR and SDR Gateway and supporting SD Wi-Fi hubs, which
are designed to efficiently distribute the Wi-Fi signal throughout
the cabin," Moore said.
Person said that in Viasat's experience, both mid- and supermid business jets want internet without compromise, and noted
the importance they've seen for Ka-band in super-mid-size business jets.
Person described Viasat as "vertically integrated" in its offerings.
"We provide both the satellite network as well as the hardware
on the aircraft. Our solutions are for super mid cabin and above.
So, super mids and large range or long range, large cabin business
jets. And we offer global Ku Advanced and we offer our high-speed
Ka-band solution. And we can combine those two to our dual band
solution in the large cabin aircraft," he said.
Salvador said Gogo can address almost any budget and aircraft
type and also the type of mission that the aircraft flies - anything
from a single-engine turboprop all the way up to airline category
aircraft that may be in a VVIP configuration. For VVIP aircraft,
Gogo offers a satellite system used by many airlines worldwide
called 2Ku. The AVANCE platform is the underlying onboard technology that is the engine that drives it all.
"AVANCE is not just a connectivity solution, it's a true digital
platform consisting of both hardware and software. With AVANCE
you can transform your entire inflight experience by integrating

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Aircraft Maintenance Technology

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