Photo: Inmarsat

[Via Satellite 10-19-2016] Rockwell Collins, under a Letter of Intent (LoI) signed this week, is now prepared to provide Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband-Safety service to both existing and new customers from across the aviation industry. The agreement outlines the companies’ mutual interest and plans to work with airlines to develop and introduce a migration path from traditional flight deck connectivity solutions to new, higher bandwidth, secure IP connections.

Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband-Safety is an “always-on and always-secure” solution that enables a range of aviation applications including flight data streaming (Black Box in the Cloud) and real-time Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) applications such as networked graphical weather.

Using secure IP-based broadband connectivity, the product also fulfills the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’s Global Aeronautical Distress Safety System (GADSS), including global flight tracking.

Rockwell Collins is a long-time provider of Inmarsat’s Classic Aero safety service as part of its information management solutions portfolio. The new agreement provides incentives for upgrading to SwiftBroadband-Safety, together with price assurances for Rockwell Collins-based Inmarsat Classic Aero customers.

SwiftBroadband-Safety hardware is currently available for initial retrofit installation on existing aircraft and is scheduled to become a standard option on new aircraft deliveries starting in 2018.