FoCuS on inflight entertainment
distributors) is unlikely to be available to this new market for at least three to four years. But the fact that this is a new lightweight
alternative to embedded systems, and can also be streamed to the passenger’s own device opens up a highly competitive lucrative market. It is especially attractive to airlines with single aisle aircraft or new aircraft which could be fitted for much less cost with an onboard wireless system. No or fewer wires means less weight and volume, not to mention the elimination of seat electronic boxes and/or monitors in the seat. Currently the market leader in this area is Lufthansa Systems which won a Crystal Cabin Award at the AIX show for its BoardConnect system. The company is closely followed by Lumexis with a new system on demo at AIX, branded WiPax. Thales also exhibited a new wireless distribution system branded AVA, and other companies announced plans to enter this space, including Intelligent Avionics (currently in test mode), digEcor, and BlueBox Avionics. However, it was Lufthansa Systems that
caused a big stir by announcing that it had approval from Hollywood to show EW movies via BoardConnect. The supplier claims to be the first such company to offer this new amenity and has passed stringent data security requirements to achieve it. The approval granted relates to purpose-built in-seat display units and also to tablet PCs provided to passengers by the airlines themselves. Early Window content will eventually be available in Virgin America’s new A320s. However, the company believes it will still
take another year or two to prove it to the movie companies building trust and approval. Lufthansa Systems now has four airline
customers for BoardConnect: Qantas, Condor Berlin, V Australia and Virgin America. BoardConnect senior vice president Norbert Mueller said the target market was for airlines without IFE i.e the narrowbody single aisle market. He said that the system is proven for 250 devices simultaneously and is currently being streamed to 254 devices onboard Qantas using only five wireless access points in the cabin. He showed the typical type of content
Opposite page: Lufthansa Systems at the AIX show, exhibiting iPads on racks with content from the BoardConnect system. Right: The Countour Concept and Emirates IFE.
www.onboardhospitality.com 55
“The next stage is to offer shopping applications, a new map application and onboard chat, passenger to passenger”
that BoardConnect streams to iPads, including more than 200 hours of movies, music, newspaper files, arrival guides, information pages and airline information. The next stage is to offer shopping applications, a new map application as well as onboard chat, passenger to passenger. Lumexis demonstrated its WiPAX system derived from the company’s Fiber-To-The- Screen headend server/aircraft interface system. FTTS has been sold to three airlines: Flydubai, Royal Pacific Airlines and Transaero. Lumexis showed a WiPAX kiosk featuring
laptop, tablet and smartphone. Inside, the server was serving off content that went through a wireless access point and came out wireless to the passenger devices. Lumexis CTO Rich Salter said, "Some airlines
have told us they like Fiber-To-The-Screen but they also want to stream to passenger devices. So we started it as an adjunct to FTTS, and then some airlines since said, we don’t want to go embedded screens into the seats at all, we just want to put this in as standalone." Lumexis also showed a high definition display. Salter said, "High definition really is in its infancy, and I think we may be the only company offering HD. We’re supplying it now and you can really see a difference." Intelligent Avionics presented the latest
development to its system AURA Works and announced it is also testing a wireless distribution system, while TriaGnoSYS is offering AeroBTS+ which is a platform covering wireless audio/video on demand and other cabin services to passengers’ own devices. Airvod Entertainment and TriaGnoSys are
partnering to provide aspects of wireless content distribution to seat-back screens and passengers’ own smartphones, tablets and laptops, as well as inflight connectivity for live updates. The AeroBTS+ software will be integrated into Airvod’s Seatcentric system. Thales unveiled AVA, its new wireless content system, incorporating Siemens software to stream content to multiple passenger devices. Thales director of connectivity Andrew
Thompson said that passengers' own devices are an ideal IFE platform for many airlines, compared to traditional handheld IFE: "Handing out devices is a large expense for an airline. We’ve never been intimidated by that model. It has a lot of issues, everything from batteries to putting content on – it’s a lot of work for an airline. It’s one thing to put them on for business class, but it’s another thing for economy…" Thales is addressing concerns about the security of content, Digital Rights Management (DRM) in order for movies and other films to be streamed onto the passenger device. "We actually have three labs now that are testing this," said Thompson. "One is with the company associated with DRM, and they have our hardware in their lab and they’re making sure their DRM is compatible with our hardware. It’s the DRM in the Siemens software that distributes the content to the passenger device so it’s protected." Panasonic Avionics Corporation also highlighted its own wireless distribution system branded eXW, which uses a wireless network to deliver services and content such as on-board movies, music, news, and in-cabin services to
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