Page 21 - AAA SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016 Online Magazine

INTERVIEW ROCKWELL COLLINS

and traditional mid-tier and top tier carriers to develop a number of products in the Wi- airliners. When dealing with a narrowbody
are now also looking more and more at our Fi space. We have 2 customers that have fleet, typically you have more tails to deal
PAVES on demand systems. In Asia there is already selected our systems. We will also with and these tails are scattered over a
still significant demand for broadcast for the be flying the systems for a number of other larger geographical area when they are on
overhead retractable systems for narrow customers that we are actively working the ground, as they are not always parked
bodies. This is driven by operational needs with going forward. In terms of technical overnight at the same place as widebody
to do safety demos and to be able to do challenges for Wi-Fi – the bigger technical jetliners do. Narrowbody fleets also fly more
them consistently and in multiple languages challenge is the bandwidth requirements, segments every day, so there is not only
every single time. It is also driven by the need which are growing so rapidly that the greater wear and tear, but loading of content
to reconfigure seating configurations on technology struggles to keep up. We can put on these aircraft becomes quite challenging.
aircraft rapidly. We are seeing upticks in every WAPS on an airplane today, that can support The airline needs to make sure that it has a
category; wireless, PAVES on demand, in-seat effectively all of the seats available on an content loading capability that optimises
and overhead systems. The most surprising airplane, based on average usage rates, usage of the system and doesn’t penalise the
aspect to us has been the take-up rate in in- that we see now. However, a year from now, customers. With PAVES On-Demand, which
seat video for narrow-body airplanes. these average usage rates will be larger by is a seat centric IFE system, the content
a factor of 10. So keeping up with this is the is loaded directly onto the device on the
What are the developments related to high- bigger technical challenge. seat, this provides a much more responsive
speed Wi-Fi on commercial jetliners? system as all the data is not being pulled
High speed Wi-Fi on aircraft is critical to What are the maintenance and logistic over from a network. Customers also obtain
unlocking the future potential of IFE on requirements for IFE systems? dramatically greater storage capability for
jetliners. People talk about connectivity a It is not as much as the maintenance of an dramatically less cost because all the data is
lot and it gets a lot of press. But it is very IFE system on a day to day basis, as it is the being stored on SD cards. This is also makes
important to understand that connectivity logistics of managing the IFE systems fleet PAVES On-Demand, considerably more
does not operate without Wi-Fi on the wide. When an airline is looking at choosing future proof, as the SD cards can be changed
airplane. You can receive band-width from in IFE system today, they are looking more for higher capacity. It also eliminates the
a satellite on the airplane, but you need a carefully at how content can be loaded on the problems associated with a single point of
device to distribute the bandwidth inside device. This is because loading content on an failure and PAVES On-Demand delivers in
the airplane and this is the really important in-seat system or loading large volumes of terms of redundancy, cost, reliability. This is
aspect. We made a significant acquisition in content is even more complicated on a single- unlike our two competitors who are still head
this space two years ago, and are continuing aisle aircraft as compared to twin-aisle end centric with their IFE systems.

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