Airtext has enhanced its Airtext+ service to enable high-speed transmission of graphic images, and to give crew access to digital airport terminal information (D-ATIS). The service already enabled passengers to send and receive texts for 5 cents per message, anywhere and at any altitude. Airtext+’s Big Data can be switched to a high-speed datalink to enable the transmission of documents and pictures.
“Passengers and crew members can use visual media to ensure precise and accurate understanding of their messaging,” said David Gray, CEO of Airtext. “For instance, en route to a meeting, a document can be sent to the aircraft for final review prior to the arriving at the destination.”
Gray said advances in the next year would be enabled by expanded bandwidth. “Right now, Airtext works on a relatively small bandwidth, and yet we can do so much,” he said. “Iridium Next is coming in late 2018 and we will be increasing the pipeline to the aircraft by 44 times – that’s a 4,400% increase! There is also a huge transformation in Bluetooth coming. At this point, we use a low-power BLE solution. Over the next year, new devices with BLE-5 will be released that will open up bandwidth on phones and tablets. BLE-5 is twice as fast, enables further range and can transfer 800% more data.”
October 10, 2017
