One Million Bytes a Second is Goal Rockwell Collins has Set for Datalink

In-flight connection speeds of up to one megabyte per second should be possible on corporate jets within the next few years, according to engineers at Rockwell Collins. That's 400 times faster than possible today, and 15 times better than in an average executive hotel.

What's more, it will be possible with existing satcom equipment and Aero-H or H+ antennas. Executives will have access to streaming video or videoconferencing, as well as their email, without having to invest in new broad band satcom equipment.

But as of this summer they will have to make do with a hotel-speed 64 Kbps (kilobytes per second)-itself a remarkable achievement and 25 times quicker than today's miserable 2.4 Kbps.

Rockwell Collins is here at EBACE (Booth 7449) with a brand new black box, the HST-900 high speed transmitter, which will make it possible to channel the new Inmarsat Swift64 data service through existing Aero-H antennas and Rockwell Collins SAT-906 satcom systems to an Ethernet port in the cabin. Telecom operator Inmarsat has just made the service available to the aerospace market.

The single-channel, plug and play HST-900 lists for around $160,000 but there will be introductory pricing, David Wu, director of marketing at business and regional systems, told Show News. He sees an initial market of up to 1,000 aircraft-that's the number currently flying with SAT-906 systems. The HST-900 weighs just 8-1/2 lbs.

Collins is also developing a two-channel high-speed datalink that will be able to combine two Swift64 channels to give 128 Kbps in the near future. Then, with Inmarsat's new satellites in service in 2004, it should be possible to feed data at 432 Kbps and with compression technologies boost it to one megabyte per second, according to Chris Evans, principal marketing manager at business and regional systems.

"It's a technology that's evolving rapidly," he said.

By John Morris