SwiftJet promises a big boost for inflight connectivity performance across a broad range of planes. And now aircraft owners know where they can sign on for the service. Inmarsat announced today that its upgraded L-band offering will be distributed globally by Satcom Direct and Honeywell.
Expectations around the digital onboard experience have also evolved considerably and the market has challenged us to amplify L-band capabilities. This ensures business travelers can enjoy faster connections across more devices whenever and wherever they fly without compromising on key characteristics of resilience, reliability and availability.
– Kai Tang, Inmarsat’s Head of Business Aviation
Not that the selection of these two partners comes as much of a surprise. The two are leading distributors of connectivity solutions for the business aviation market. Moreover, Honeywell took part in the initial announcement of the SwiftJet solution at EBACE earlier this year as a hardware provider.
SwiftJet remains on track to enter service in the first half of 2023. Customers are now able to engage with
their preferred distribution partners, as well as aircraft manufacturers and installation providers, to discuss pricing plans, service contracts, upgrade feasibility and more.
Taking advantage of the increased capacity and beam flexibility of the L-band payloads on Inmarsat’s I-6 satellites, SwiftJet offers seamless near-global coverage and maximum speeds of 2.6Mbps, up to six times faster than Inmarsat’s
existing SwiftBroadband (SBB) L-band business aviation connectivity service. Inmarsat expects this speed boost to open up a range of new applications to the inflight market. This includes enhanced capabilities for video calls, web browsing, email, texting, cloud-syncing and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams.
Existing customers of Inmarsat’s SBB service will benefit from a natural upgrade path through minimal changes to the installed equipment, while new customers will experience the same ease of installation as with any Inmarsat L-band terminal. The service also creates new opportunities in the smaller jet market, which have previously been restricted to basic voice or text connectivity that fails to meet the needs of modern-day
business travelers.
As the latest addition to Inmarsat’s portfolio of business aviation inflight connectivity services, SwiftJet will be available alongside the legacy SBB platform and Jet ConneX (JX), the most popular and widely-adopted premium, high-speed solution available today, powered by a global Ka-band satellite constellation.
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- Inmarsat announces Honeywell, Satcom Direct for SwiftJet distribution
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