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Viasat Introduces Air-IQ: the Next-generation of Smarter, Flexible ISR Connectivity for Mission Operations

July 23, 2024

Viasat Inc. introduced Air-IQ, its new, upcoming connectivity solution designed to deliver faster, smarter intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) communications for government and military missions globally.

Air-IQ will help strengthen military situational awareness, ensuring users have access to reliable, real-time intelligence to make fast and dependable battlefield decisions. Robust ISR connectivity offers a 360-degree understanding of the battlefield, giving military users a critical advantage where and when it matters most – reducing risk and increasing mission success, while aligning to support the highest security standards.

The new Viasat solution is designed to meet the intense requirements of crewed and uncrewed ISR missions for governments around the world. Available in the coming months, Air-IQ will provide users with the ability to dynamically shift from low-throughput to high-throughput connectivity based on mission needs. This automated capability is designed to eliminate friction, optimize bandwidth and cost efficiency, and deliver significantly higher uplink speeds, with uplink data transfer prioritized up to and above 10Mbps, where required.

To meet complex mission demands, Air-IQ will deliver resilient multi-band connectivity for operations in congested areas across Ka-band (commercial and military), Ku-band, and L-band, allowing customers to access different services and move between frequencies as needed.

“We wanted to take the complexity out of ISR connectivity, so that users can focus on what really matters – enhancing situational awareness and gaining advantage on the battlefield. Air-IQ will offer a robust, reliable, and flexible connectivity solution that is designed to adapt to the needs of the mission on the fly. We built it to deliver the speed and performance to act as a force enabler for real-time mission communications,” said Todd McDonell, President, Viasat International Government. “Our consistent focus on innovation and customer needs is the driving force behind Air-IQ, offering a balance of flexibility and reliability for operations in any environment.”

Air-IQ services will be highly flexible to meet the widest range of customer needs and allow interoperability with sovereign networks. Operators will also be able to manage multiple aircraft across a fleet, and seamlessly switch networks as mission requirements change, all within a single Air-IQ capability. Additionally, Viasat will continue to maintain the high reliability of its services with committed information rates and service level agreements.

This seamless and resilient experience will be delivered by Viasat and its partner networks, leveraging software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) applications to intelligently route or even split traffic to the most appropriate band and network to avoid failover. This capability will help deliver the assured data transport that is mission critical for warfighter operations and safety.

Viasat’s current fleet of satellites – along with its future satellites anticipated to come into service in the next four years – are designed to provide global coverage and deliver greater capacity wherever it’s needed, including offering polar coverage in the Artic region to meet emerging government and ISR mission demands.

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