Honeywell will exclusively resell wireless airtime for the Inmarsat Global Xpress Ka-band connectivity services and hardware for business jets.
The OEM signed distribution agreements with ARINC Direct and OnAir to work with operators directly to provide the service.
Honeywell is manufacturing the antennas and terminals for Inmarsat's Global Xpress high-speed internet service, which is set to launch globally for aircraft operators in early 2015. However, this agreement focuses specifically on the airtime for business operators.
Business aviation operators are early adopters of technology and "have a need for speed," said Carlo Esposito, vice-president, marketing and product management at Honeywell Aerospace. However, that speed is not only related to wireless inflight entertainment. The Ka-band service will allow them to have new options for downlinking critical data from the aircraft to the ground while in flight, thanks to much faster speeds. The volume of data that operators will be able to push to and from the aircraft will increase "dramatically", he says, with aircraft being able to transmit gigabytes of data wirelessly.
Source: Flight Daily News
