German air navigation service provider (ANSP) DFS has purchased 27 communications network groundstations from communication services provider Sita in a deal worth €1.4 million.
The VHF air-ground communications stations, all based at German airports, have been used by Sita customers for ACARS airline communications datalinking, but 19 of them have already been upgraded from analogue to digital datalinks (VDL-2) and the remaining eight soon will be, according to DFS.
DFS chairman and chief executive Dieter Kaden says the deal is motivated primarily by the need for a VDL-2 capability to enable controller-pilot datalink communications (CPDLC) to replace voice transmissions under the Eurocontrol Link 2000+ programme. But, Kaden says, this is the most cost-efficient way to do it, because it avoids the need for duplication of existing networks.
DFS managing director engineering Peter Waldinger says that DFS has to own the service, because CPDLC is a safety-critical part of its task as an ANSP, but there is more than enough capacity on the network and in the datalink to provide for the airlines' continuing ACARS needs. Sita will pay DFS for the use of the network by its airline customers.
This is not the first time Sita has done a deal of this type with an ANSP. In 2002 Sita signed a similar 21-groundstation deal with Spanish ANSP AENA, but the terms were tailored to AENA's requirement.
In a late 1990s deal with Brazilian ANSP DECEA, Sita sold DECEA its network of ACARS groundstations, but the need for them to be converted to VDL-2 only existed in the relatively crowded airspace near Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, so only the groundstations at those two airports were upgraded.
Source: Flight International
