An Airbus A330 has undergone a successful flight-test equipped with new standard high-bandwidth connectivity (HBC) on-board architecture. This is the industry’s first such platform to be flight demonstrated that will soon allow airline customers to choose from the range of new high-throughput satellite technologies such as Ka-Band, SwiftBroadband (L-Band) and Ku-Band, and be able to do so independently from airlines’ choices of IFE supplier. This means that passengers and crews can be just as ‘connected’ in the air throughout their entire flight, as they are on the ground.
The new HBC platform will be rolled-out from mid-2017 onwards and will rapidly become available across Airbus aircraft families.
For this initial flight-test, Airbus’ HBC platform was demonstrated together with the new HBC offering from Zii – which is based around Inmarsat’s new “Global Xpress” Ka-Band satellite network and can offer continuous worldwide high bandwidth coverage for commercial aircraft.
Panasonic Avionics Corporation was Airbus’ most recently selected as a supplier for HBC line-fit solutions (across all A320, A330 and A380 product families) which are compatible with Airbus’ new HBC architecture. The selection of Panasonic – whose system uses the Ku-Band – follows HBC supplier selections including Zii, Thales, and Rockwell Collins.