Seamless Air Publishes First Inflight Connectivity Standard

A new milestone in providing secure and hassle-free Internet in the skies has been reached by Seamless Air Alliance, which has published the first standard for inflight connectivity. The Seamless Air Alliance is an open, international collaboration of airlines, technology leaders, and suppliers formed to improve the way airlines build out connectivity to support continuous innovation and allow rapid upscaling in the market.

Developed in collaboration with industry experts acrossSeamless Air Alliance’s member companies, Seamless Release 1.0 establishes the onlyModular Platform Architecture for inflight connectivity. By using a modularstructure based on open interfaces, the system enables rapid adoption of newtechnologies without requiring customization or the complete replacement ofequipment on the aircraft or fleet.

Seamless Release 1.0 enables long-term technical flexibilityfor airlines, provides a secure and easy-to-access service for passengers, andopens the door to seamless roaming with mobile network operators.  Seamless Release 1.0 includes a set of unique,testable requirements for airlines to use when developing sourcing requests. Inaddition to saving the airline time and money to develop these requirements,standards eliminate the risk of trying to predict how future developments willimpact their choice of systems.

“Passenger demands for inflight connectivity are still aheadof the performance of systems, putting increasing pressure on airlines to finda way to meet these expectations and gain passenger loyalty,” said JackMandala, Seamless Air Alliance CEO. “Seamless Release 1.0 changes the game byenabling airlines to take advantage of new capacity and innovations faster andmore cost-effectively than ever before.”

Sherif Bakir, CEO of Vodafone Roaming Services, added:"While inflight connectivity is already available today, the experience ofcustomers varies from one airline to another in terms of things like simplicityand data speeds. With rising consumer connectivity needs, this new standard isa promising first step towards a much improved and consistent inflight customerexperience."

Additional details of Seamless Release 1.0 are available ina newly published technology brief, titled “Seamless Air Alliance Introductionto SR1 – A New Era of Inflight Connectivity”.

The publication of the standard, which is available for anySeamless Air Alliance member to view in full, enables airlines and mobileoperators to easily deploy, integrate and operate on-board networks by having achoice of different suppliers and open interfaces from where they can sourcemodular parts, subsystems and software. This design means multi-supplier IFCsystems can be built quickly to support future technology upgrades that do notrequire customizations.