Satcom Direct to Grow Asia Pacific Presence | Aviation International News

ABACE 2017

Satcom Direct to Grow Asia Pacific Presence

Satcom pioneer comes to ABACE after a busy year of innovation and acquisition.

April 6, 2017

Satcom Direct (Booth H226) has helped revolutionize the communications capabilities of the typical business jet cabin over the past 20 years, since it was founded by Jim Jensen in Satellite Beach, Florida. It comes to ABACE after one of its most active years ever, with the launch of SD Pro, roll-out of the SD Wi-Fi Hub, plus the acquisition of Comsat, AircraftLogs and TrueNorth Avionics.

Nathan Andrews, regional director for the Asia Pacific, who was appointed to the role last October after many years with the company, told AIN, “We are hoping to take on additional resources in Hong Kong and Australia this year” to help grow the business in the region. “The company has developed rapidly since 2013,” he added, putting part of that down to aircraft owners wanting to upgrade, now that new capabilities are available.

Although upgrades are proving popular, and Satcom Direct has a dedicated person in the region advising and assisting clients, Andrews said customers should plan “from the outset” to equip the aircraft at its entry into service. That way you have “a happier customer” and also a less frustrated service provider, he said.

Either way, “We can sit down with the customer and their preferred MRO to plan the installation and provide them with the cabin Wi-Fi block diagram, breaking it down into multiple Wi-Fi zones for example.

“Then, once we have a draft, we can hand it off to the engineering facility.” He said the time to do the work can “vary widely, but recently we’ve seen a 12-month timeframe. The caveat is how soon the aircraft is going in for scheduled maintenance anyway,” as that would be the best time to do the work, “and how long it takes to get the avionics to them.”

Getting on new aircraft platforms such as with Gulfstream is helping given that “now things are a lot more complex, with networks, equipment and so on. The OEMs are recognizing it’s better to do the airframes earlier,” said Andrews.

He noted the “great take-up rate” of the Satcom Direct Router and Wi-Fi Hub “and now we have TrueNorth too” offering the Optelity family of satcom systems.

SD Pro has provided “an integrated flight operations platform bringing all the elements into one platform—connectivity, maintenance, automatic flight log and data links. You can avoid the pilot having to tally everything up as the data is taken straight off the cockpit avionics to the server. So now you can open up the concept of connectivity much wider than the cabin, to operations, maintenance and so on.” And these don’t impact the cabin (Live TV for example) as they don’t take up much bandwidth.

One thing people insist on now is “24/7 connectivity,” said Andrews, who noted, “the airlines are looking at that now, too.” He also predicted that data rates and bandwidth would continue to increase, driven by the increasing uptake of videoconferencing. “People use this a lot now, as you can really go beyond e-mail”

“There is a general perception that Asian customers are tech savvy and connectivity hungry,” said Andrews.

At ABACE this year Satcom Direct is focusing on its 20th anniversary “and what the evolution has been,” including explaining to customers and potential customers what the acquisition of TrueNorth Avionics (completed in December) is bringing to the business. With Satcom Direct’s services and equipment widely used in the U.S. and elsewhere, it is making Asia Pacific growth a priority.

For example, Andrews told AIN in late March that the first Asia Pacific customer had signed up for the AircraftLogs web-based aircraft/crew scheduling service.

The company believes it has the market pretty much covered as a reseller, with ViaSat, Inmarsat, Iridium, etc. “And we have just brought on Panasonic as well,” said Andrews. “It gives customers other options and continues our [service/platform] agnostic position, which also allows us to deliver the best solution for the customer depending on their operational requirements.”

He suggested that China’s next step may be the addition of an air-ground system. “If the Chinese government wanted to get this done, they would…but one problem Asia may have [overall] is different regulatory regimes, unlike the U.S. and Europe. You can overfly half a dozen countries in a very short space of time—so that might be the biggest stumbling block. But China could do it—assuming there will be a staggering number of airframes eventually.”

SD’s Timeline Highlights

1997 Founded by Jim Jensen

2002 Became Inmarsat Reseller

2004 Designated Iridium Service Provider

2008 ViaSat Reseller for Yonder

Acquired Honeywell OneLink

2009 Became SwiftBroadband Reseller

Launched AeroV VoIP

OneView (DirecTV)

SD Flight Tracker

2012 Started International Expansion

Opened Offices in Farnborough, Dubai, Montreal and São Paulo