CONNECTI V IT Y
QUALITY
THE AIRCRAFT CONNECTIVITY MARKET IS MOVING DYNAMICALLY,
AS SERVICE PROVIDERS TAKE VARIOUS APPROACHES TO EXPANDING
CAPACITY – INCLUDING LAUNCHING NEW SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS
businessjetinteriorsinternational.com
018 APRIL 2020
Words by Paul Skeldon. Ill ustration by Katha r ine Ashe r
F or years the market in aircraft connectivity
has been dominated by four companies: Gogo,
Viasat, Inmarsat and Iridium. According to
Valour Consultancy, Gogo now counts some 5,500
business aircraft on its air-to-ground (ATG) network,
while Viasat lays claim to more than 1,100 cumulative
shipments of its Ku-band system over the last decade,
and also offers a Ka-band solution. On the L-band side,
Inmarsat and Iridium account for the bulk of the market.
Inmarsat has built a base of almost 4,000 aircraft
that rely on its SwiftBroadband (SBB) service and
some 600 that use the Jet ConneX Ka-band solution.
Meanwhile, with 10,000 aircraft installed with Iridium
services today, it’s estimated there is a 90% chance
a business jet will use Iridium voice services to power
inflight phone operations.
But things are changing. Elon Musk’s Starlink system
is planning to fling up a constellation of as many as
42,000 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to provide global
/businessjetinteriorsinternational.com