Inmarsat Aero Conference 2002
June 11-12, 2002
ICAO Conference Facility, Montreal, Canada
A time capsule, here are my notes from the annual Inmarsat Aero Conference, 2002. I was CTO for Tenzing Communications. This was a difficult time, following 9/11. Tenzing had downsized by 60%. We were focused on deploying Swift64, 64 kbps in either circuit switched or packet switched channels. Sorrow for all that have passed since then.
Inmarsat hosted this conference to promote the emerging aero swift64 services, as well as to highlight emerging safety services. The conference was well attended by equipment suppliers, all the LESOs, the airframe manufacturers, and a few airlines.
Tony Busby, Inmarsat Aero Managing Director, David Featherstone, Aero manager, Simon Tudge (marketing), Dick Smith, Rohan Heisler Aero Engineering, and Lindsay Norrish Aero Safety services were there and I had a chance to talk to each of them. There is quite a bit of support from this team for the Tenzing service. Tony reports to Paul Branch.
Other key Inmarsat persons (not in attendance): Robert Johnson (maritime), Raja Gulalea (Land mobile), and Chris Howard (new business).
My presentation covered background of Tenzing, current service offerings, analysis of swift64 services without Tenzing, and analysis of the benefits Tenzing will bring to swift64. This approach required me to dig a bit of a hole for swift64 (expensive for live services, latency issues, management of comms) so I could stand on the mound to promote Tenzing. However, this was extremely well received by Inmarsat and the attendees, and was referenced favorably in many of the following presentations. Tenzing was the only company talking about the realities (performance and cost); everyone else just talked about 64 kbps.
Some of the presentations were made available in hard copy; let me know if you want a copy of any specific one. The following are summaries plus my notes, and also some of the discussions that took place in the breaks.
Perry Melton, Inmarsat Ventures
2001 gross revenue of $441 MM, EBITDA $280 MM. 99.99% overall network availability. Still waiting to move to an IPO.
Introduce a regional BGAN (broadcast global area network) by the end of 2002 (144 kbps). This was not discussed in any detail, but other information I have heard leads me to believe this is a leasing arrangement to deploy an earlier transition to Inmarsat IVs. I do not believe this is an aero initiative, but I will continue to gather information.
240,000 Inmarsat terminals in service (land, maritime, aero) as of March 2002.
Inmarsat stated that candidate aero installations were as follows:
- Long haul 2800
- Mid/Short haul 8400
- Corporate 7400
- Govt/Mil 3100
Total potential market: 21,000
Total installed to date 5,000
About 50% of the long haul aircraft (~1400) are equipped, with over 70% new aircraft equipped at delivery. Only 3% of the mid/short haul (~250) are equipped.
Initial installation of MISDN service on a corporate aircraft in 1Q2002
Initial installation of MPDS service on a corporate aircraft expected 3Q2002
Initial installation (MISDN/MPDS) on an airline 4Q2002 (although this date was “expected”)
Inmarsat stated that the emergence of a wireless LAN in the cabin would stimulate data services. Personally, I was confused as to why this was, in itself, held up as a barrier, in light of the innovations that we have in service today.
EMS (Ray Larkin, Gary Hebb)
Finally caught up with Ray and expressed delight to see he was still alive (as he has not returned Steve’s many attempts over the last couple of months to contact him). EMS has retained rights to market their products to the Military, and he assured me that the uptake in that market was quite attractive. However, he expressed some frustration with Teledyne not being able to move the product to corporate aviation. He has offered to get us a single channel radio to “play with”, to which I was receptive. Note, we need to get an Lband dish and LNA/Diplexer, plus build a tray, for this to work.
Gary Hebb talked about a land mobile product they are introducing which allows multiplexing up to 8 voice calls on an ISDN channel, with the remaining bandwidth assigned, in real time, to data exchange. This is a very interesting option, as we could use the voice traffic to subsidize the data traffic. He expects to have a small, 2MCU, box for aero service at some point in the near future. I told him we were quite interested in the product and would like to continue the dialogue. John Little had also heard this at the Inmarsat meeting two weeks ago.
HSD-128: 2 channels of HSD (either MISDN or MPDS). 8 MCU, 80 watts HPA, 375 watts power (DC or AC), 22 lbs. Processor and HPA developed to DO-17B level C. RS-232 and ISDN today, Ethernet and CEPT coming 3Q2002.
Integrated with virtually all Aero H antennas.
None of the architecture drawings show a server. They only show a terminal adapter and router. But they mention a server in passing on one chart.
40 units delivered.
Teledyne exclusive rep to corporate and GA. EMS reserves military markets to themselves. In cooperation with Rockwell Collins and Teledyne towards the airline market.
2 year warranty. 24 hour help line.
Catalog pricing: HSD-64 $168,720; HSD-128 $182, 250
Square Peg (Micahel Gertsman)
This company has developed a number of Inmarsat terminal test devices, but more notable, they have built the aero “card” for the AIRIA broadcast service. This card is operational, but needs to be hosted in a box, which they do not intend to provide (they provide to someone else, in AIRIAs case it was Ball, in our case, it could be Rockwell or L3). The card provides about 300 kbps service, and is based on QPSK and 16QAM modulation. I mentioned to them working with a company that had developed 64QAM (Dspace), to which they basically dismissed.
This company could be useful if we are successful in promoting a private broadcast service and want to move quickly. However, I think that Thrane and Thrane are another option.
I overhead a conversation that Boeing (Connexion?) was leasing space segment from AMSC (North American coverage) and using Square Peg for the technology. I am not sure to what end.
Teledyne (Jody Glasser)
Jody and I had a frank discussion on the way forward between our two companies. Previous discussions have always been enthusiastic, but it seems, Teledyne then moves forward trying to sell the total service without us. I stated that we were not comfortable proceeding with any further discussion until Teledyne would commit to working and promoting Tenzing in some fashion. Jody expressed frustration that there were those inside Teledyne that wanted to “do it all” and that he was always promoting a teaming approach (other Teledyne persons have expressed that Jody is the one that wants to do it all). In any case, Jody has action to reconsider the situation and to initiate a dialogue with us. Note that I had discussed this same situation with Ray Larkin, EMS, who was very aware of Teledyne’s approach, as well as their failure to sell the EMS product in any significant numbers (he alluded to just a few to date).
Jody had been briefed on a common project with Baker, and became confused, as nowhere in the Baker materials is Tenzing mentioned.
Jody also agreed to look into producing a small, stand alone, ISDN Terminal Adapter. I told him we had some near term projects that had a need for this, and I was aware that they had something close already.
Bombardier (Ahron Hayut)
I was approached by this person as someone quite interested in our services. He had never heard of Tenzing, and was not aware of Baker offering this type of service in any form.
RDT (Graham Murphy)
This company makes a portable terminal to gather medical information (heart rate, EKG, still photos, etc) and can communicate over a circuit switched connection, via the IFE, to a medical response team on the ground. The business case for this service is two-fold: reduction of diversions where the assessment shows that the situation is not urgent and secondly to provide a basis to support likely litigation (where the airline failed to divert when they should have). They have spent considerable efforts in getting their modems to work reliably, and feel they have achieved better than 80% success rates. RDT feels that a lot of the remaining issues are in the IFE itself, as well as problems in channel modules at the LESO facilities. I was asked privately whether we could work together for quality control information; RDT is obligated to exercise the comm links as a part of their QOS guarantees, and this has proven to be a burden to them. I expressed that we would be happy to discuss this, as well as any ways for synergy between our services when we are installed on the same aircraft. At this point, I don’t think we have a common customer, but RDT feels that it will happen soon as they think they will be on most aircraft over the next couple of years. So, further discussions will reveal the opportunities. Note: Virgin is one of their customers. I am not familiar with the competition in this space; I got the impression there was at least one other major player.
Shepard (Andrew Drwiega)
I was asked to produce a 1000 word article on the impacts of swift64 on the pricing for services. This was a direct result of my presentation. I will coordinate with Laura. This is due ASAP.
Gulfstream (Brian McCarthy)
Brian has been attending Inmarsat conferences representing his customers forever, and is always quite outspoken, although frankly, a bit removed from the detailed technologies. He was quite interested in ours and RDTs success with circuit switched services (CN64/CN85). I stated that the key areas to focus on were the originating and terminating modems, and both of us confirmed that good success rates were achievable. By stating that the issue was in the modems, and not in the SatCom, several LESOs expressed gratitude to me.
I talked to Brian briefly and quizzed him on why they had not been willing to pursue Tenzing. He said that they were happy to install a server based on customer demand, but were uncomfortable encumbering the customer with a relationship with a service provider (read Tenzing). I have his card and suggest we follow up on this discussion.
ARINC (Carl Wheatley)
Focus on end-to-end value, full service provision, and cost-effective evolution to higher functionality. Satellite service provided via the Telenor (Comsat) stations in Santa Paula and Southbury, the Telenor Eik station, the Stratos Goonhilly station, the Singtel Sentosa station, and the KDD Yamaguchi station.
Service available today: Telephone, Fax, Internet, Intranet and E-mail
Future: SMS, Content updates, Cabin security, Global mobility, M-Commerce, Streaming A/VOD
No mention of Virgin or the relationship with Tenzing.
SITA (Eric Messer)
Eric, originally from Delta and recently Rockwell Collins, has joined SITA and is the manager for value added services, including Swift64 and Gatelink.
Largest provider of IP network and applications to the airline industry. Largest value added network: 2100 locations, 220 countries, 500 airports.
Utilize France Telecom and Xantic stations for SatCom.
SITA Focus: Deploy Aero-IP services to the aircraft
AIRCOM Flightlink: Swift64 service
AIRCOM Gatelink
MISDN service available July 2002
MPDS available Aug. 2002.
Gatelink available today.
Movement to deploy seamless GSM roaming services onboard. SITA has joined the GSM association global roaming forum group. SITA has established partnership with a GSM financial and data clearinghouse for the development of GSM-standard interfaces. SITA is establishing roaming relationships with GSM operators to provide GSM service onboard the aircraft. Current offering includes support for GSM account charging cards. Next offering is SMS send and receive services in flight. Future goal: let passengers use their own cell phones.
At one point I expressed frustration that no service provider had committed pricing for Swift64, and that the equipment suppliers had been squishy on the cost of their equipment. Eric stood up and assured everyone that SITA had provided HSD pricing to Tenzing (to which, I was unaware). I don’t know why he would say this. My comment was really directed at Inmarsat and their failure to fix the pricing until recently and this made it hard to build a business case.
Stratos (David Warren)
Bell Canada owns 52% of Aliant, which owns 63% of Stratos Global Corporation which owns Stratos Aeronautical. Invested $200MM in ground facilities.
Provide service in cooperation with SingTel Sentosa stations.
Mobile Connect, launched with Honeywell, first ground to air direct dialing service for business aircraft. Callers use the same number to reach someone regardless of the aircraft they are flying.
Airline Interactive Services – ALIS
First to offer Emessaging – ability to send text messages to cell phone, email, fax ($1.95 per message). Launched May 2001, in service on four airlines. Airline specific news/promo materials, shopping, frequent flyer registration, destination information.
Swift64 services 2002.
David told me that he wants to discuss rates with us and is certain he will be very competitive. I whispered the $10 minute, $14 per Mbit and he felt that he could do much better.
Telenor (Michael Bonard)
Only Aero Service provider to operate all ground stations (Eik, Santa Paula, Southbury and Kuantin for Swift64) for global coverage.
No hard copy of the presentation, and I did not note anything else in the discussion.
I was surprised to hear Michael state that Inmarsat communications were inherently secure from eavesdropping.
Michael tells me that a public tariff for MISDN and MPDS is on their web site, but he could not tell me what they were. I checked the web site and found equipment price TBD and no tariff. I sent him an email and asked for clarification.
Honeywell/Thales (Bill Rowell)
HS-600: 2 box (4 MCU HSU and 8 MCU HPA), uses splitter and high power combiner. Limited production until HS-700 available. Installed on their corporate Citation V. Demos to media, airframers, service providers, and a number of corporate operators. Connection via the Honeywell Network on the ground to the Internet. 16 lbs, AC or DC, ISDN or RS-232 interface, level E. In production as of June 2002.
HS-700. Single channel MISDN or MPDS. 2 MCU, ARINC 404 form factor. 5 lbs. DC powered. ISDN, Ethernet, RS-232 interfaces. Uses splitter, combiner between SD-700 and HP-600 (40Watt). No mention of Thrane and Thrane! June 2003.
Network Server Unit (NSU-4). Full featured IP router. Link optimization over SatCom. 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM, Celeron 500 MHz, Ethernet switch, 6 MCU, 23 lbs, AC or DC powered, ISDN and RS-232 interfaces.
TWLU/CWLU: wireless LAN (terminal and cabin).
Next generation HPA mid 2004. This will enable swift64 for airline market.
Total solution provider: LAN, server, SatCom, HSD, SatCom service (OneLink), ground servers, data center. I think that makes it difficult, once again, to work with them. Of course, they have not even answered a call back to us for months.
Looking forward to next generation SatCom, to be discussed at next A/G subcommittee meeting.
Rockwell Collins (John Friesz)
Focus on providing comprehensive solutions; all the pieces working together.
SAT-906, provides 60 watts of power.
Pax initiatives are the single biggest driver for high speed data. Included options to use alternative forward channel (C/S/Ku band). Some drivers emerging from AOC applications.
Key HSD objectives: Maintain safety service integrity, user existing HPA and antenna, take advantage of land mobile HDS initiatives.
HST-900 input via splitter from diplexer/LNA, output via combiner between existing RFU and HPA. Single channel service, either MISDN or MPDS. Ethernet, ISDN and RS-232 input interfaces. 8 lbs. 2 MCU, 31 Watts (115 VAC), passively cooled.
Thrane and Thrane (Bror Malm)
TT-5000HSD+
2 low speed circuits, 1 packet data, 1 HSD. 6 MCU, 2 boxes. 19 lbs, available 2Q2002.DC powered. 28 Watt HPA. About 280 Watts power. .
Miltope (Robert Guidetti)
New server release: 30 GB hard drive, integrated analog modem, ISDN modem, battery backup, DC or AC powered, 2 Ethernet ports.
Claim >200,000 hour MTBF on hard drives!
Wireless Access Server Point (WASP). 802.11b, 2 ethernet ports.
Pentar (Bob Rodgers)
Business at the “speed of flight”
JetLAN XP: aviation connectors, 2 removable hard drives up to 40 GB each, 400 MHz processor with upgrade to 800 MHz, 2 USB interfaces, modem, ISDN, Ethernet, 8 lbs, in-service.
JetLAN AirMAIL: Private or Virtual Private Network between aircraft and home server. Secure access plus Internet access. Peace of mind that the connection is secure and that messages are not stored or forwarded to an intermediate server.
JetLAN AirPRINT: converts ARINC 740/744 interface to windows printer driver via RS-232, parallel or Ethernet.
2MCU JetLAN “coming soon”
Inmarsat 4 (Tony Busby)
Plan to launch 2 satellites (54W, 65E). Will replace Inmarsat IIIs in those positions. Global beam (80 channels/sat), 19 Wide Beams (200 channels/sat) and a bunch of narrow spot beams (588 channels per satellite).
Third satellite is being built as a spare. Could be launched to complete global coverage. Current 2 satellite coverage is North America across Asia, leaving out parts of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Alaska, and much of the Pacific Ocean.
Leverage land mobile developments. Use Inmarsat IIIs for POR.
Market data: Business and Gov’t users need higher data rates. Airlines are pre-occupied with survival. 61% of passengers will use email. 12% of passengers will use Internet. Broadband awareness increased as a result of Connexion and AirTV.
Concept of variable data rate solutions:
- Inmarsat III Global beam: Aero H 32 kbps, Aero I not supported
- Inmarsat III Spot beam: Aero H 100 kbps, Aero I 32 kbps
- Inmarsat IV wide beam: Aero H 200 kbps, Aero I 50 kbps
- Inmarsat IV narrow beam: Aero H 500 kbps, Aero I 100 kbps
(no mention of Inmarsat Global beam solution…since wide beams have overlapping coverage)
I had several discussions with Tony. He does not think we can get spectrum on the Inmarsat IIIs global beam for broadcast service. I could not completely understand his position on engaging Tenzing as a exclusive partner Vs. non-exclusive. He was very much in favor my presentation and wants the realities to be known. Tony asked me if I was aware of the concessions provided to Tenzing to date (primarily air time), which I said I was, but we both agreed it was not a point to publicize.
United Airlines SKY-PAD (Capt. David Sambrano)
PC based COTS product to provide supplemental information to the pilot. Charts, weather, ACARS data, manuals and procedures. Portable and carried by the pilot. Fujitsu tablet computer.
Phase I in-service evaluation funded by NASA. Includes GPS inputs for moving map situational awareness. Some issues with the size and quality of the tablet. Plugs directly into Airfone handset for direct dial circuit switched connection.
Phase II new color display, IP based, bezel buttons. FAA funding.
Phase III fleet deployment subject to board approval. Considering either 777 or A320 fleets.
Phase IV broadband integration. Server connection. Process 80% of AOC messaging. Crew and Cabin resource management.
Cost benefits: 38 lbs of flight bag paper reduced to 4 lbs (fuel and medical impacts), electronic distribution of charts instead of FedEx paper distribution, real time weather, surface moving map to reduce runway incursions. Turbulence predictions will reduce injuries.
NASA estimates 1-2% fuel burn reductions and 2% reduction in block time. 80% reduction in turbulence injuries.
Want to certify using emerging AC120 effectively as a PED.
Security applications?
Biggest challenges: where to put it in the flight deck, data pipe, board of directors approval.
I talked to David after his presentation and told him we were working with Airfone closely and had a very cost effective, low impact CTU server solution, and that we had begun discussions with UAL again. He expressed some frustration over the Kansas Group and felt that they had more options now. I told him we could see some substantial opportunities to assist on this program and would like to discuss any near term opportunities (along with Airfone). It sounds like he has a great business case and we can leverage that to get onboard.
Security Activities (Shawn Gerber, IATA)
Top four initiatives:
1) cockpit door reinforcement
2) Transponder emergency mode
3) Video Camera surveillance around door
4) Emergency cabin/cockpit communications
Most rule making is currently focused on the door reinforcement and transponder emergency mode.
IBAC (Donald Spruston)
International council represents interests of member business aviation groups (NBAA etc..)
Some interesting numbers:
- 21,000 turbine aircraft, average 500 hours/year
- 11,600 are jets
- over 13,000 operators (note, maybe 3,000)
US has about 14,837 (7,974 jet)
- Canada 706
- Brazil 680
- Mexico 571
- France 445
- Germany 416
- UK 293
Average 700 new deliveries per year.
- Long range jets (GV, Global Express, BBJ, ACJ) 200
- Large Cabin (GIVSP, Falcon 900, Challenger) 1800
- Super mid size (Citation X, Legacy) 4000
- Small Cabin (Citation, Beech) 5000
Plus a few airline converts
Approaching 1000 aircraft in the fractional operators
Typically less than 5 oceanic crossings per year.
89th Airlift Wing C32 operations (Lt. Col. Tom Johnson)
4 757s used for executive transport (VP, First Lady, Sec of State…)
Not mentioned, these are the aircraft that placed the $112 MM order to Connexion by Boeing.
Loves Inmarsat. Very dynamic flight planning and operation, need to use Inmarsat constantly.
Dedicated station and operator.
I am certain that we should contact Tom and approach him with a server solution. No doubt, he will want or has High Speed Data (not mentioned) and we can provide the server to manage it. Even without HSD, we can offer our proxy email solution. May entail some special GCS setups.
Continental (Bob Neel) and Airfone (Dan Bagley)
Dan told me that they have installed a CTU server on a Continental aircraft and are going to be doing a “content” thing. He did not elaborate.
Singapore (Eric Koo)
Eric said Hi and was curious why our work together seemed to have stalled out. I told him that we were working a three way deal with SingTel and that it was taking some time to complete .
American and AT&T
AT&T (Claircom) had just stopped their in-seat telephone service. I happened to be flying home and saw the new placard.
Connexions Hall
This is where we had dinner! Connexion by Boeing was building momentum with Ku-band IFC service offering that was highly competitive to Inmarsat Switft64 in both price and data rate. It was ironic to gather in the Connexions Hall (no connection to CbB, of course).
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