Email in the Skies via Spectrum and LiveTV

After yesterday’s bird educed plane crash in New York City’s Hudson River, who knows if people are going to get back on a plane. However, this system could have proved useful for those who wanted to send a last minute email explaining the situation to family and friends.

 

Spectrum Signal Processing along with Vecima, an advanced custom radio provider, announced a partnership with LiveTV, an in in-flight entertainment and connectivity systems for commercial aircraft, to supply next generation radios for the LiveTV's connectivity system.

 

Passengers can send and receive email with people on the ground using Kiteline, LiveTV's connectivity system, which uses a network of air-ground base stations to transmit data from an aircraft cabin to the ground.

 

LiveTV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JetBlue, is the provider of JetBlue's in-flight entertainment service, recently recognized by the World Airline Entertainment Association as the Best Overall in-flight entertainment experience in the Americas for the second year in a row.

 

"This contract with LiveTV is a significant milestone for Spectrum (News - Alert) and Vecima because it validates our strategy to expand Spectrum's SDR technology into broader commercial applications," said Douglas Fast, President of Spectrum. 

 

“Working with an industry leader like LiveTV will allow them to leverage their extensive experience supplying software reconfigurable solutions for military and defense systems into this new commercial application,” he added.

 

The company also expects that the next software reconfigurable radios will ultimately lower LiveTV's total cost of ownership for the airborne radios used in this application. 

 

With Spectrum's software defined radios (SDRs), LiveTV will be able to support current voice communications for the general aviation market as well as data services, such as email and instant messaging, for the commercial and general aviation market. 

 

Spectrum's products and services are optimized for satellite communications applications, as well as military communications, signals intelligence, surveillance, and electronic warfare. Key customers include commercial satellite communications providers as well as the US Government, its allies and its prime contractors.