Cable Satellite International
Airlines
are increasingly utilising high speed broadband to differentiate
their service and keep pace with passenger demand at 40,000 feet.
In
response to intensifying consumer demand for the content they want
when they want it, airlines are increasingly employing wireless
streaming and portable devices as a value service to enhance
passenger experiences. These new services present an opportunity for
airlines to increase consumer bases, create new revenues and reduce
cost. It also presents new business for satellite bandwidth and
broadband systems providers as the demand for global inflight
connectivity expands outside the US.
“The
aeronautical mobility sector is a key target market for SES and is
poised for strong growth in the coming years,” said SES' chief
commercial officer Ferdinand Kayser, in tieing up a deal last
September to supply satellite bandwidth to aero communications
supplier Global Eagle.
The
demand is clear. With
81% of passengers carrying a smartphone, and nearly 20% carrying a
smartphone, a tablet and a laptop, people want to view content over
their own devices, as they do on the ground. Inmarsat
quotes figures that show passenger demand for inflight connectivity
has increased in the past twelve months with 52% of consumers
believing it an important area of investment, and 54% saying they
would use their mobile device to stay in touch with the ground.
“Many
people dread being out of mobile phone contact,” states
OnAir Aero, a provider
of in-flight connectivity services. “They
are
used to being connected wherever they are. There is no reason why
that should change just because they are flying.”
The
global in-flight entertainment (IFE) segment is estimated to total
more than $3 billion annually. The industry has been growing at
nearly double-digit rates and is expected to expand more rapidly over
the next few years. Certainly, with the number of commercial aircraft
with high-speed, broadband communication links projected to quadruple
to more than 13,000 by 2023, competition for eyeballs in mid-air will
intensify.
“Consumer
demand for any content at any time on any device is changing the
cost-benefit equation for airlines and high-quality, scalable,
flexible video streaming solutions will play a significant role in
this transition,” says Lionel Bringuier, senior product manager,
Delivery Products for Elemental Technologies. “Infrastructures
based on legacy hardware will not be able to keep pace. Airlines and
IFE vendors need to be able to easily prepare their technology
infrastructures for live linear streaming at the lowest possible
total cost of ownership. That strategy starts with a continuously
upgradeable video processing and delivery infrastructure that can
bring premium content to viewers no matter what device they’re
using or where they are.”
Increasingly,
consumers expect their video anywhere, on any device and want to view
that content with DVR controls like time delay, pause or repeat. They
will come to expect this onboard airplanes, too. Live streaming TV –
particularly time-shifted TV that ensures no passenger ever has to
miss the end of their movie or show because their journey is over –
presents an interesting opportunity for engaging and capturing
consumers and monetising. But it also provides new technical
challenges with more content protection when the passengers are
'taking the content' out of the aircraft.
“On-demand
TV reflects how people increasingly watch TV shows and films but
there is the question of which channels to show, in which language,
along with the associated licensing rights,” states OnAir. “This
is less of an issue when flying only over one country (such as the
US) however it is very complex when flying international routes.”
Pay models
Pay
per view, pay by usage (MB), pay by duration and sponsorship are some
of the different business models in play although these pay models
are based around broadly two deployment models.
In
one, airlines preload content and specialised in-flight apps onto
tablets that are distributed in cabins, suggests Bringuier.
In another model being deployed by IFE vendors, airlines install a
plane-wide content streaming system with a wide variety of movies, TV
shows, games, music and other content along with broader Internet
access. Airlines can stream content to passengers’ devices and to
wireless screens they distribute or build into seats.
For
example, when upgrading entertainment options on the fleet of 757s it
flies between Paris and New York in 2012, French airline OpenSkies
(owned by British Airways) bought nearly 500 Apple iPads and
preloaded them with videos to hand out to passengers instead of
adding more seat back video systems. Outside the US, multiple
airlines - such as Air France/KLM, China Southern, El Al Israel,
Emirates Airlines, Jetstar Group, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, Qantas
Airways and Singapore Airlines - distribute or rent tablets to
passengers and offer on-board wireless video systems that stream
movies and TV shows and provide broader connectivity. In the US,
carriers including American, Delta United and Southwest offer BYOD
(bring your own device) streaming. Passengers connect to the
airline’s onboard WiFi and stream content from its server-based
onboard library.
OnAir's
VOD product OnAir Play, combines
inflight connectivity with films, TV, music, games, magazines and
newspapers. Passengers have access to a full range of content
including live news and sport, updated throughout the flight and can
buy destination-based goods and services to ease their arrival. The
passenger simply connects to the Wi-Fi hotspot using their own
personal electronic device to access all the content. The content is
also available through the embedded seat-back screens and overhead
screens.
As
well as pre-loaded content, OnAir Play Live is able to push content,
for example news and sport, to the aircraft during the flight, giving
passengers access to the latest developments. The content is tailored
for each airline. For example, the news updates can come from the
airline’s home country, wherever the aircraft is in the world.
Such
systems can save airlines cost. According to the Wall
Street Journal,
the OpenSkies iPad system cost about $250k to install per plane in
contrast to the $3 million per airplane that typical in-flight
entertainment systems cost to wire in. An onboard wireless system
could reduce hundreds of pounds without the miles of cabling required
for traditional seatback systems. The WSJ reports that getting rid of
screens on a single 767 Lufthansa airplane with 260 seats could save
80 metric tons of fuel a year or nearly $90,000.
Wireless
systems also offer airlines future-proofing opportunities. Typical
on-board seat-back entertainment systems last five to ten years and
have no hope of keeping pace with rapidly shifting consumer behaviour
and expectations. Airlines can keep up by opting for building less on
board – including a software-upgradeable video processing enabled
infrastructure.
With
the current adoption rate below 10%, though, Wei Li, Senior
Consultant, Euroconsult warns; “It seems providers and airlines
still need to work together to find more sustainable business models
in order to attract more passengers to use the service.”
Video
heads the list of potential connectivity applications but is far from
the from only one. For example, in the cabin it not only includes
passenger connectivity but also crew communications and inventory
management, crew rostering, credit card payments and telemedicine. In
the cockpit, applications include connected electronic flight bags
and route information as well as aircraft health monitoring. Some
service suppliers (Inmarsat is one) can provide a service to cover
all of these applications from cockpit to cabin.
“Successful,
sustainable business models will likely evolve and hybridize just as
we have seen with OTT and TV Everywhere services over the past couple
of years as airlines, IFE vendors, programmers and advertisers
identify the monetization models,” says Bringuier.
Bandwidth provision
Air
to ground (ATG) WiFi is best suited to domestic coverage, certainly
over
large continental landscape markets like the US and China.
“It
can provide High Throughput Satellite-comparable bandwidth and can
leverage existing cellular infrastructure,” says Li. “However,
for geographically fragmented markets, the licensing process will be
very long and costly.”
The
biggest driver for revenues is the demand for more bandwidth on
regional routes for passenger and crew connectivity via Ku-band and
HTS systems, states NSR's
Commercial Mobility via Satellite, 10th Edition report published last
summer.
In-service Ku-band units will grow to just over 9,400 by the end of
2023, with most units on narrow-body airframes. This blistering pace
is made possible by aircraft being outfitted on the production-line
by the likes of Boeing and Airbus, mostly for North American
carriers.
The
rate of growth should see a slowdown around 2017/2018 when HTS units
installs start to grow. HTS systems will start gaining marketshare in
2017 and as such, short-term gains are key for Ku-band.
Gogo,
arguably the world's largest IFE brand, has satellite agreements in
place with SES (for coverage over the US., Atlantic Ocean and Europe)
and Intelsat for coverage over portions of the Atlantic and northern
Pacific oceans, as well as routes over South America, Asia, Africa
and Australia).
In
the US it uses a Ku-band antenna for downlink to the plane and
terrestrial ATG uplinks from the plane. Its latest technology, 2Ku,
expands its reach globally, and deploys two Ku-band antennas for
speeds of 70 Mbit/s. All
Delta Air Lines international fleet and all of Virgin Atlantic's
craft are being fitted with the solution.
Whether
ATG or satellite delivered to the craft, one of the most important
aspects of inflight connectivity is that it is available
consistently. International airlines in particular need to be able to
provide their passengers with a consistent service throughout every
flight, whether they are flying over land or water, regardless of
territory.
“The
provision of consistent global connectivity is particularly important
for international airlines,” says Leo Mondale, president, Inmarsat
Aviation. “SwiftBroadband (Inmarsat's IP-based,
high-speed data service) is
the only global L-band network, and GX Aviation will be the only
global Ka-band network.”
The
introduction of Inmarsat’s global Ka-band network, Global Xpress
(GX), early in the second half of 2015, will be a game-changer says
Mondale. For the aviation market, it will provide speeds of up to
50Mbps to the aircraft, “enabling airlines to satisfy what has now
become a basic need for people, keeping them connected throughout the
entire journey.”
Inmarsat
is working on a European Aviation Network, operating over S-band, to
cover countries within the European Union, along with a complementary
ground network. It will be integrated with its L-band and Ka-band
networks, allowing Mondale to claim Inmarsat will “provide airlines
with the highest capacity and connectivity available.”
Last
summer, in-flight network switching between six satellites and three
Ku- and Ka-band networks was demonstrated by ViaSat.
The
test flights validated ViaSat's 'best available service' premise, a
concept that borrows from mobile cellular communications. Similar to
the way a cell phone roams between 3G and 4G or LTE, satellite
network-switching can benefit customers in the same way, as higher
performance satellite coverage areas are introduced to new regions.
The airborne broadband terminal integrated a ViaSat Ku/Ka-band
antenna with ViaSat mobile and broadband modems, and a third-party
modem.
ViaSat's
Exede
in-flight internet enable broadband satcoms on 200 commercial
aircraft operating over the ViaSat high-capacity Ka-band satellite
network in North America. The company has also significantly expanded
its global Ku- broadband airborne network to address enroute
connectivity for business aircraft. Applications include live HD TV
streaming.
Most
of OnAir’s 21 airline customers currently use Inmarsat
SwiftBroadband, which it says provides cost-effective and consistent
global coverage. It
is, though, agnostic about the radio link provided the technology
is available for use on aircraft.
“This
simple statement covers a very complex undertaking,” it states.
“Inflight connectivity is subject to two areas of regulation. The
first is that the airborne hardware needs certification from
international and national aviation regulators. The key criteria are
that it is robust enough to withstand the pressures of flying and
that it does not interfere with the plane’s avionics. The second is
telecoms regulatory approval for the use of the spectrum. The key
objective is to ensure inflight connectivity does not interfere with
ground networks.” (OnAir currently has authorizations from over 100
countries, with the list growing each month).
Since
different providers use different infrastructures (and even the same
provider is not able to use the same network in different regions due
to the limitation of ATG or satellite coverage) quality of service is
due for development.
“Many
passengers complain that QoS is not equal over oceans as over
continents,” says Euroconsult's Li.
“This
will negatively affect the passenger experience and slow down growth.
QoS is expected to be harmonized in the coming years as more global
and multi-regional mobile satellite networks deploy. Moreover,
satellite operators have started to work closer with inflight
connectivity providers prior to the launch of satellites and thus
more inflight purpose-made satellite beams are expected in the
future.”
Outside
of the US, the TV service is primarily VOD but the introduction of
HTS provides more bandwidth at low per MB price to the market, making
satellite more affordable to travelers and making live broadcasting
an option.
“The
satellite industry is still trying to find a balance between the HTS
spot beam and the regular larger beam for the investment of future
satellites,” says Li. “It is difficult to tell what will be the
usage mix between broadcast type services and data intensive
point-to-point services in the next 15 years (typical life time of a
satellite). In addition, the ATG is becoming increasingly
competitive, especially over continents. Also for the business model,
satellite industry now has a choice between providing the
connectivity to passengers and providing network infrastructure to
service providers. The infrastructure only model will ensure higher
margin and is easier to operate. However the end to end service based
model can ensure the market share.”
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