Seeing Stars: EMS and Starling Join Forces to Capture Ku band Connectivity Business in the USA (What About Mijet?)

A few weeks ago Panasonic Avionics revealed it is still shopping around for an antenna for its in-flight connectivity solution, after deciding that Starling’s Mijet antenna was not yet up to its specs. Today, Starling announced a memorandum of agreement with EMS Technologies to offer a new Ku band antenna for the US market. Coincidence? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

But the timing, to say the least, is very interesting indeed. “We want a better overall performance that will meet our requirements not today but meet our requirements down the road,” Panasonic director of strategic product marketing David Bruner told me in January.

Perhaps Panasonic will get its wish. Under the agreement disclosed today, Israel's Starling and Georgia-headquartered EMS’s Defense & Space Systems (D&SS) division will offer an ultra-lightweight (45lb), low-profile antenna that will enable “full-featured broadband in-flight applications, such as the Internet, VPN [virtual private network], PDA, VoIP [voice over IP], e-mail, mobile phones, video conferencing, instant messaging and various entertainment applications, including video-on-demand, live TV, online gaming and multimedia applications”.

But here’s a yummy piece of info for ya. The joint product with EMS is a mature product and will be ready within a few months!!! So says Starling VP marketing and sales Jacob Keret, who was kind enough to call me just before he hopped on a flight. Thank You!

Oh yes, and before you write off Mijet, you should know that it has a customer, thank you very much. Certification is underway, and little sister mini-Mijet will be certified in the third quarter. Stay tuned for more info about this – I’ve got to write some follow-up articles for Air Transport Intelligence and Flight first!

But before I dash off, let me leave you with this thought. EMS direct broadcast satellite (DBS) antenna systems are currently sold through JetBlue Airways subsidiary LiveTV. JetBlue general manager of product development Brett Muney said yesterday at an EMS-sponsored event in DC that a broadband offering is among the in-flight connectivity solutions being studied by the airline. Could LiveTV use a new EMS/Starling antenna to offer satellite-based connectivity onboard JetBlue A320s? What about LiveTV's other customers - Frontier and WestJet (and now Continental Airlines)?

Anyone dizzy yet?

(Photo above right of Runway Girl with Panasonic Avionics CEO Paul Margis and WestJet executive Darren Marchinko at a reception last September during WAEA in Toronto)

Trend Watch: Airline Take-up of Live Television/Connectivity Grows

The adoption by US carriers of in-seat live satellite television – together with connectivity services - is growing leaps and bounds.

This trend is “really exciting”, says Panasonic director of strategic product marketing David Bruner. “The US market could end up in the next couple of years with a totally different experience when you get onboard the airplane than what you saw a couple years ago.”

A strategy launched at inception by JetBlue Airways through its LiveTV subsidiary is being copied on a broad scale. Frontier and WestJet are long-time customers of LiveTV’s in-flight television system. Continental Airlines recently announced plans to install LiveTV across a large portion of its Boeing narrowbody fleet.

Delta Air Lines, through its Song experiment, followed JetBlue's lead when it began offering Panasonic Avionics-manufactured in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems – with live television – onboard domestic flights. It later announced it would extend the offering to its entire transcontinental fleet.

Start-up Virgin America, meanwhile, offers television and (video on demand) VOD onboard its Airbus A320s.

Added to this, JetBlue, Frontier and Continental have all gone public with plans to offer connectivity over LiveTV technology, while Virgin America plans to offer AirCell connectivity.

That the combo of live television and connectivity is proving hard for carriers to resist is evident by the number of requests for quotations (RFQs) in the market right now, say Bruner.

Although LiveTV intends to offer live television and light connectivity to airlines, Panasonic is going a different direction. In addition to television and VOD, the company is offering satellite-based “full Internet connectivity and the broadest broadband in the world”.

A customer has not yet been announced but Panasonic is confident installations will begin on a US airline by year-end. “The airlines are now very focused on not what is the cost of the system, but what is the net cost of the system if it generates revenue. It may pay for itself and make its customers happy and bring you more customers. That's a positive thing,” says Bruner.

So are the Canadians next to introduce connectivity? As mentioned earlier, WestJet's aircraft are equipped with LiveTV. Air Canada, on the other hand, offers Thales IFE.

(Photo above right of JetBlue's LiveTV system)

Red or Blue…What’s a Girl To Do?

If you’re looking to fly between New York JFK and San Francisco, you’ve got a bevy of airlines to choose from. In terms of in-flight services, however, there are two standouts in the crowd – US low-cost operators JetBlue Airways and Virgin America.

Though located on opposite sides of the USA (JetBlue at JFK and Virgin at San Francisco), the similarities between these two Airbus A320 operators are obvious (and well-reported). But competition is going to get even more fierce in the coming months. Here’s why.

JetBlue CEO Dave Barger today revealed the all-economy carrier is looking at allowing customers to pay more for greater seat pitch in the cabin. Translation - JetBlue wants to provide a business-class seating product (it’s just not clear yet if that is what the airline will call it). The plan will be unveiled by the start of the second quarter.

This development is not entirely a surprise. JetBlue last year reduced capacity on its A320s to accommodate additional legroom in the front of the cabin. But, from an in-flight perspective, it brings the eight-year-old airline into closer competitive range to start-up - and two-class operator Virgin.

Added to that, both carriers are very serious about driving ancillary revenue. Virgin will shortly permit passengers to order a variety of upscale items via its “Red” seat-back in-flight entertainment (IFE) system, which uses Panasonic hardware and has about as many bells and whistles as a domestic traveller could ask for.

JetBlue, on the other hand, recently launched a “cashless cabin” whereby it accepts major credit or debit cards for in-flight purchases using handheld devices. Passengers can currently purchase alcoholic beverages this way, but in-flight offerings will be made available in the future.

There is at least one major area where JetBlue and Virgin will try to differentiate themselves. The former plans to offer a limited in-flight connectivity service for free to the entire cabin via technology from subsidiary LiveTV. The latter intends to charge for broader AirCell connectivity in its main cabin. Time will tell which will be the better path to travel.

Nonetheless, both carriers deserve to be commended for figuring out what US passengers want – live television, connectivity and a credit-card swipe.

As Dave Barger said today at the Raymond James conference in New York: IFE is now “the cost of entry” for airlines. “Eight year old kids are making purchasing decisions” in the cabin!

(Photo above left of Virgin America's IFE system; below right of LiveTV promo shot from Livetvifs.com)

JetBlue Airways and LiveTV Agree to Talk Connectivity

JetBlue and subsidiary LiveTV have agreed to talk about the carrier's WiFi connectivity services (dubbed BetaBlue) in advance of a December 11 statement. Thanks guys. Here are notes from my conversations this morning.

LiveTV vice-president of sales and marketing Mike Moeller says:
1) "When we stated this process, we sat back and ... David Neeleman, our chairman, held up his Blackberry and said 'if you make that work on the aircraft, you have solved the problem'."

2) "This is the start. That’s why we call it beta. We want to make it better. We will continue to make software upgrades. [We'll] see what passengers like and dislike, find the kinks in the system and continue to make it better."

3) "When you advertise broadband, people want to use YouTube, streaming video. Even if someone had all 4MHz (of ATG spectrum) it’s difficult to solve that." [LiveTV has 1MHz, AirCell 3MHz]

4) "We started discussion with them [RIM] earlier this year. This has all been kept very, very secret."

5) "The ultimate experience[for passengers is to have] a TV in front of them with 36 channels, watching the game, Blackberry is working, and look at flight attendant and have your beverage. We think that is the ultimate 'died and gone to airplane heavy'."


A JetBlue spokeswoman says:
1) JetBlue feels it has the capacity available to support the service because “at any given one time, there is going to be customers who are watching their television or listening to their radio …how many would press send at the same time versus composing or reading an e-mail?”

2) “We will continue to listen to what our customers want as we test current offerings available on BetaBlue and … based on that will develop a plan and time frame to roll out fleet wide.”

3) We’ve optimized the network for e-mail without attachments and for instant messaging [as well as] instant text messaging through Yahoo Messenger”.

4) “We’re looking at the next logical step in the evolution of our products, what connectivity we can offer. Shopping would be one of the next services we could provide. But right now we’re focused on perfecting what we’re offering – allowing customers to keep in touch with folks on the ground when in flight.”

5) "Yahoo as well as RIM have been a huge part of the development process with us. Yahoo is the number one e-mail provider in the US with 262 million e-mail accounts and they are a popular service. Blackberry is also an extremely popular service. We thought it was important to focus on brands that customers know and love on the ground and bring it to them in the air as well. "

6) Forging partnerships with the likes of MSN and Google to offer passengers access to other free e-mail accounts “is something we’re going to pursue in the future”.

7) With respect to satellite-based broadband service: “We could do it potentially, and we could do it with LiveTV but the business model for that is cost prohibitive. If you look at Connexion by Boeing, they had to charge customers $20 to $30 dollars and [customers] weren’t willing to pay $20 or $30 for that service. We think that is a business model that would be cost prohibitive to provide it for free to all customers and that is something we want to focus on to be able to offer it free for everyone.”

8) JetBlue does not have a time frame for the length of the trial. It will last “several months at least”.

9) Devices used by JetBlue passengers will need to “have an independent on and off switch for WiFi and cellular” as in-flight cellular services remain banned by the FCC and FAA.

10) JetBlue is not interested in eventually allowing passengers to use their mobile phones for voice calls during flight, even if regulations are relaxed. “We believe that our customers really would value a silent connectivity experience ... We would support silent options like text messaging, but we’ve heard loud and clear from our passengers, and we will not be pursuing any cell phone usage calls.”

Sifting Through the Hype: Just What Can JetBlue's Connectivity Solution Offer?

JetBlue Airways today confirmed it will start testing wireless connectivity services onboard an Airbus A320 beginning Dec 11.

Kudos to JetBlue for this well-timed marketing move – the carrier will technically be the first in the US to offer connectivity over WiFi-enabled devices. But let’s put their announcement in perspective, shall we?

First of all, JetBlue’s offering will be limited at best. The carrier says passengers who have WiFi-enabled laptops – AND Yahoo Mail or Messenger accounts – will be able to send and receive messages during flight. Passengers who have RIM’s new WiFi-enabled Blackberries – the 8320 and 8820 models – will have access to emails and messaging.

JetBlue’s LiveTV subsidiary last year won a 1MHz narrowband license during the FCC’s auction of 4MHz of spectrum in the 800MHz band allocated to air-to-ground services.

AirCell, you’ll recall, won the exclusive 3MHz broadband license at the FCC auction, and is preparing to offer service onboard American Airlines' transcontinental Boeing 767s (the test begins as early as March). Passengers will have access to e-mail, Internet and VPN accounts via virtually all WiFi-enabled devices.

I’d love to know more details about JetBlue’s offering (just how many passengers will be able to send/receive Yahoo email at one time, at what speed, etc, etc), but JetBlue has told me they don’t intend to discuss the issue until next week. Spoil Sports.