In-flight Connectivity Executives Trade Barbs at Satellite 2016
In-flight connectivity company executives threw a number of verbal elbows at one another over data capacity and the future of air-to-ground (ATG) connectivity, at a panel Tuesday at Satellite 2016. "Some of the exaggeration is going to come back and…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
bite some of us," said Leo Mondale, Inmarsat president-aviation. Air passengers want the same kind of connectivity they get on the ground, Mondale said, but "I don't know if there's enough [demand] to float the boat of everyone up here [on the panel]." Mondale and Gogo Chief Technology Officer Anand Chari went back and forth with Don Buchman, ViaSat general manager-commercial mobility, on ViaSat's in-flight broadband offering on JetBlue and United. Chari and Mondale called it "a marketing stunt." "It's not a claim -- just buy a ticket on JetBlue," Buchman said. Chari said that alongside Gogo's efforts on the launch of its 2Ku satellite connectivity service (see 1508240040), it's also working on its next-generation ATG, which includes its interest in the air-to-ground mobile broadband spectrum it asked the FCC to auction (see 1503100047). Financially, ATG becomes viable compared to satellite in-flight connectivity if there is adequate spectrum -- which Gogo doesn't currently have, Chari said. Cost of spectrum "is what swings this thing from reasonable to unreasonable," said David Bruner, Panasonic Aviation vice president-global communications services.