They're not about wifi. They'd provide basic email and sms text messaging for free or very low cost. Bluetooth is not slow. Look below
IoT gives you a choice about what services to provide and at what charge (free or paid). The bandwidth is then staged to meet the demand. You can start with just a 200kbps link that can deliver free messaging, destination services and live credit card processing to hundreds of passengers at once. Importantly only one Bluetooth access point is required for all this to work! How is this possible? With the fflya solution, Bluetooth Smart keeps everyone connected and maintains a status of what devices are onboard and active. What makes Bluetooth Smart unique is that logged in devices run in parked mode meaning they are essentially offline. The link automatically activates when the user sends a message or processes a transaction, completing these events in milliseconds. As a result no one person can occupy a large portion of the bandwidth at any point in time. The security is quite unique not only for the way it switches channels, but is a closed network and when combined with encryption and proprietary protocols is more secure than open Wi-Fi as there is no external way to access it.
This is the reason I'm hanging on plus the military may pick up on it.
The security is quite unique not only for the way it switches channels, but is a closed network and when combined with encryption and proprietary protocols is more secure than open Wi-Fi as there is no external way to access it.
Also Iridium's new satellites coming, upgrades will follow.
BizjetMobile and fflya products leverage off the existing Inmarsat & Iridium satellites, but will be further enhanced by Next Generation Iridium satellites
I am glad you raised this point, as that is the perception of Bluetooth particularly when compared to Wi-Fi. So let me clarify why we went down the Bluetooth path when the rest are spending billions on Wi-Fi.
In regard to Speed, you can pair your laptop to your phone via Bluetooth and surf the net at up to 2 Mbps and up to 36Mbps with BT3. You can stream music at better quality than Spotify and voice at better quality than VOIP.
The reason this is possible is quality of data transmission not quantity. Bluetooth has dedicated profiles custom built for each type of service (38 in total)
Wi-Fi only has the one transmission format TCP/IP, which is classified as a lossy protocol. i.e. the more you transmit the more data you loose and the more it has to re transmit. As it was conceived to send data down cables when you transit over Wi-Fi the data loss increases due to interference and adding a satellite into the mix makes it even worse. So the theoretical transmission speed to an aircraft versus the actual passenger experience can vary dramatically.
What we developed is our own Bluetooth characteristic optimised for aircraft networks and satellites. The justification was all our communications and all modern communication platforms are short burst data, including Email, SMS, IM, Google, Twitter, Banking, News, Booking, Billing, Weather and the back end of all Social Networks.
The end result is an aircraft platform that is up to 90% cheaper than Wi-Fi and does not have the certification/installations complexities of Wi-Fi, plus is up to 98% more data efficient which directly translates to user cost.
As only 6% of passenger are prepared to pay for Wi-Fi ( GOGO Inc 10K Filing)
When people move they communicate in short burst, no more so than today’s generation and that’s where we see the future of communication in aircraft. When compared to on the ground the cost of satellites will always be expensive, so that's why we believe optimised custom protocols for short burst interfaces are the ideal solution in the aircraft environment.
Our solutions are not for everyone, but the industry needs a low cost alternative. We have been able to prove it with corporate jets, the military seems to think it has potential, so the challenge now is to translate it to airlines.
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