Interview with Hughes Network Systems: Mind your business
This is a special feature from PAX Tech's October 2024 APEX Global EXPO issue
Hughes’ believes that passengers should connect
as seamlessly in the sky as they do on the ground
As Reza Rasoulian, Senior Vice President, Hughes, tells PAX Tech, the demands of the business traveller differ from the average passenger where inflight connectivity is concerned. He cites reliability, consistency, speed and latency as the key factors to con- sider when delivering inflight connectivity to business travellers with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites.
Reza Rasoulian, Senior Vice President, Hughes
“As we move into the LEO age of inflight connectivity, I think we will see improved speeds, improved reliability, lower latency,” he predicts.
A new era of business
connectivity
Rasoulian says that the goal for Hughes
is to ensure that business travellers are
no longer struggling to maintain a stable Wi-Fi connection from gate to gate.
“We’ve spent a lot of time and energy really perfecting the end-to- end ecosystem,” he explains. “It’s not just about the satellite capacity, but
it’s also about how you deliver that experience to the passenger, creating awareness for the airline.”
Rasoulian notes that there is a predictive element to delivering reliable connectivity services inflight. If a unit or a part is about to fail, before it impacts a passenger, the supplier can work with its airline partners to notify them, fixing the problem before it impacts the passenger.
An inflection point
GEO satellites can provide a lot of
capacity to a dense region while LEO
can bring in low latency, so blending
them is a compelling approach, Rasoulian says, especially over airport hubs.
However, a LEO-only solution where
more constellations are launched,
expanding access to KU-Band and
KA-Band systems, without consumers
on the network, allows airlines to create an elevated passenger experience.
“It is not just about the satellite constellation, it’s also about the ability for the provider to actually ensure high reliability,” he continues. “The satellite constellation is no good if the product onboard keeps failing.”
While Rasoulian says inflight connectivity has not always been reliable to business travellers up to this point, he is excited about the future.
“It should be seamless. We should get on an aircraft and be able to connect just like you do at home without any interruptions and have a really content-rich experience,” he concludes. “I would say that we’re kind of at an inflection point enabled by Hughes technology and Hughes data science to really elevate the passenger experience.”
