We’re very excited about our LEO-only terminal. We think it’s a great way to bring airlines into the LEO world in a very cost-affordable manner.
If you’d asked us three years ago, would airlines ever put more than one antenna on an airplane to do IFC, we’d have all said categorically, no. How wrong were we?
Starlink has really proven that airlines are willing to put more than one antenna on an airplane. With a fleet of about 2,500 aircraft today, installed with GEO, we were looking for a very cost-effective way of getting those airlines into the LEO world.
When we went out and went to all the traditional aviation antenna providers and asked, ‘how much for a LEO-only terminal?’, we didn’t like the pricing we got back. That caused us to go out into non-traditional aviation markets.
What could we do if we looked at a core technology that was already developed for OneWeb, type-certified by OneWeb and being sold onto their network, and take one of those fairly rugged antennas and that is used in maritime, land and mobile markets, and then apply the knowledge to say, this is what it needs to do, or how do you package to be put on an airplane?
Having done a very comprehensive survey of all the antennas that were out there that met those criteria, we picked Intellian Technologies as a partner to do this in conjunction with. We have managed to achieve every objective that we had, in terms of having an antenna that’s substantially cheaper than anything else that’s out there. While it’s cheaper, there’s no compromise in terms of performance.
It’s very light, it doesn’t consume much power, it’s low profile, and it’s going to be a great addition for airlines that are currently Panasonic customers that want to get into LEO but want to do it quickly and affordably.
The goal will be to have it in under 24 hours, which we believe is very doable. We’ve simplified as much of the installation as we can, so there’s only one through-fuselage penetration, which is very unusual.
Most antennas have multiple fuselage penetrations. If you’re doing it with just one hole and a very simple installation, and not much change to the airplane, getting it installed in under 24 hours is very doable.
The antenna should be in what we call black label, which is basically production hardware configuration, in roughly a year’s time. There’s a short period of time for it to get type-certified from OneWeb. Probably the biggest poll in the tent is getting the STCs, the certifications that we need to be able to do the installation. But we’re very confident at the moment that late-2026 is when we’ll see the first of these antennas being installed.
The are airlines that are increasingly looking at what’s happening in IFC and saying LEO really is the future of IFC, that GEO is going to be relegated. We agree with that philosophy.
A number of airlines don’t have anything today. LEO-only is a great way for them to get an antenna onto their airplanes. We think it’s a great step forward in terms of the affordability of antennas for aviation.
Multi-orbit today is very relevant because there are areas today where you can’t do LEO: Russia, China, India and places like that. Today, the combination of GEO and LEO is absolutely a very logical thing to go do, and we totally agree with it.
However, as we see regulatory barriers come down and coverage being allowed over those territories, then you start to question, was there really a need for GEO when you’ve got LEO?
Some satellite operators would say there’s still a need for GEO because GEO can be more it’s more affordable – it’s cheaper. That is only true if the satellites are full. If the satellites are not full, they’re worth several hundred million dollars in orbit and nobody’s using them.
We’re seeing a massive migration of traffic onto LEO networks. Some people are already saying that 70% of global maritime traffic now flows over LEO networks, primarily Starlink.
It makes me question these terabit per second GEO satellites that are being launched. Are they ever going to fill up? If there’s no demand for GEO they’re never going to fill them, then they don’t become cost-affordable.
I just don’t buy the argument that GEO service pricing comes down, and I certainly don’t see that a GEO-capable antenna, even on an ESA, is actually going to be anywhere close to the price we can achieve with LEO-only.
Does that mean we’re wedded to just one LEO network? We see the future more as multi-network. You might see multiple different LEO networks operating on the same plane to give you network redundancy, network resiliency and so on.
This will initially be certified for OneWeb and that may be the only network it gets certified for, because there are different frequency bands that come into play with different satellite constellations.
