SES and Panasonic Avionics Sign Milestone High Throughput Capacity Agreements to Provide Inflight Wi-Fi and TV over the Americas

25 Feb 2016

SES S.A. and PANASONIC Avionics announced today two major, multi-year, High Throughput Satellite (HTS) capacity agreements serving aeronautical, maritime, and oil and gas markets across the Americas.

PANASONIC Avionics is a leading provider of inflight entertainment and connectivity systems. These contracts, for SES-14 and SES-15, represent their highest bandwidth commitment to date of high-powered HTS spot beam and wide beam Ku-band capacity. SES’s HTS coverage will enable airlines to offer next-generation inflight Wi-Fi and live television services to passengers travelling on air routes throughout the Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. PANASONIC Avionics will also utilize the HTS capacity to serve growing maritime markets and oil and gas operations throughout the region.

“These major agreements are another step-change in the highly dynamic and buoyant aeronautical connectivity market,” said Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES. “Our new high throughput satellites, SES-14 and SES-15, are poised to dramatically change the airline passenger experience and introduce a new era of inflight connectivity. SES-14 and SES-15 are designed for mobility; they are able to dynamically tailor power allocation and bandwidth to maximize capacity. This enables delivery to aircraft across different geographies and time zones. The design allows for easy transition from one region to another, from one gateway to another, and from one satellite to the other. The unique designs of both satellites include video broadcast beams which complement the spot beams, maximizing throughput for Internet and video streaming traffic. Both satellites will be launched in 2017.”

David Bruner, Vice President of Global Communications Services at Panasonic Avionics said, “With our communications service expanding rapidly across several vertical markets, we are always looking for innovative high throughput satellite designs that help us deliver the best connectivity service to our customers. Working with SES, it was clear that their SES-14 and SES-15 satellites were the best option for us to supplement our existing HTS capabilities and ensure a true broadband experience over the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Given their vision and conviction, Panasonic is very excited to collaborate with SES, and we look forward to offering these ultra-high throughput services to our air transport, business aviation, oil and gas, energy and maritime markets in 2017.”