Honeywell's X Factor on the right wavelength

Honeywell is offering a new speedy JetWave installation service in South Africa. Steve Nichols reports.

Honeywell is now able to offer its JetWave in-flight connectivity system for business aircraft through its authorised service centre, ExecuJet South Africa.
It says a full “fly away” turnkey system installation can be completed in less than 15 days. The package is also available through Jet Aviation, Geneva.
Honeywell says this represents a significant reduction in the aircraft downtime needed to install Inmarsat’s next-generation Ka-band connectivity solution. Customers no longer need to wait for a C-check or other planned maintenance events before upgrading.
Stephen Alcock, senior director business and general aviation, Honeywell Aerospace, said: “The introduction of the fast ‘fly away’ JetWave installations brings a ready-to-go option to business aviation users when upgrading their connectivity hardware. These installations are available for several business jet platforms.”
The Honeywell JetWave hardware, which includes a lightweight parabolic tail-mount antenna, works with Inmarsat’s Jet ConneX business aviation in-flight connectivity service to deliver near worldwide coverage.
The lightweight JetWave system is offered exclusively from Honeywell. As well as the tail-mount antenna, the system consists of three other major components – an antenna controller to accurately point the antenna to the satellite, a radio frequency (RF) unit, and a modem.
Supplemental type certificates (STCs) are available for more than 40 aircraft types, including models from Gulfstream, Bombardier, Dassault and Embraer. The list is growing constantly.
A larger fuselage-mounted JetWave antenna is also available for bigger VVIP aircraft such as the Airbus A310, A319, A320, A321, A330 and A340 or Boeing B737, B747, B757, B767 and B787. This includes ACJ and BBJ variants.
The Jet ConneX service is delivered by four, and soon to be five, Inmarsat Global Xpress (GX) satellites providing worldwide coverage up to about plus or minus 80 degrees latitude.
The fifth Global Xpress satellite, constructed by Thales Alenia Space, will boost capacity across the Middle East, Europe and the Indian subcontinent, and is targeted for launch in 2019.
Jet ConneX provides an “on the ground” type internet experience with multi-megabit speeds. This means people can use the in-flight connection to browse the internet, send and receive e-mails, handle video-streaming, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), live TV, file transfer, virtual private network (VPN), videoconferencing and much more.
The Ka-band solution enables them to enjoy much higher volumes of data for a significantly lower price per megabyte. The megabit (Mbps) speeds, rather than the kilobit (Kbps) speeds delivered by older technologies such as SwiftBroadband, means users get an experience more like the one they expect in their office.
JetWave and Jet ConneX together deliver high-speed Wi-Fi that’s 10x faster than Inmarsat’s older SwiftBroadband service – even over oceans. Honeywell and Inmarsat guarantee connection speeds though a committed information rate (CIR) of between 1.5Mbps and 6Mbps, depending on the service package chosen.
Typically, users commit to a data package that supplies between 25 and 95 gigabytes of data a month. They also select the maximum upload/download speeds they want.
At the US-based NBAA show in Orlando, Florida in October, Inmarsat announced that Jet ConneX had already been installed and activated on 400 business jets worldwide.
The milestone was reached less than 24 months since Jet ConneX entered commercial service, highlighting its rapid uptake across the world.
Christine Lawson, director business aviation, Inmarsat, said: “The fact that 400 customers have installed Jet ConneX in such a short space of time is a major endorsement of the service from customers."