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How Anuvu is Advancing Connected Entertainment in the Sky

Anuvu is betting on a novel GEO constellation and cloud computing services to keep airlines connectivity-equipped and passengers entertained and engaged.

When it comes to airline inflight connectivity and entertainment services for today’s always-connected passengers, content, convenience and above all, performance, are king.

“If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that demand for connectivity from passengers while in-transit is fundamentally different than it was a few years ago – and that’s not unique to airlines, but we are seeing the same thing from folks at coffee shops to cruise ships,” observes Brad Grady, research director for NSR, an Analysys Mason Company.

Anuvu executives celebrate the Crystal Cabin Award they won during the 2022 Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany last month, for their newly-launched connectivity solution, Dedicated Space™ in the IFEC and Digital Services category. Anuvu

A Rapidly Evolving Landscape

But in an environment of constrained airline resources and increasing travel demand, airlines must strategically leverage the latest innovations in connectivity technologies to maximize profits and the customer experience, says Josh Marks, CEO of Anuvu, a connectivity and entertainment solutions provider serving global airline customers such as Southwest Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and Air France.

“Use of the network is changing in real time,” says Marks, during an interview with Avionics International, citing the rate of acceleration of passengers posting Tik Toks, streaming YouTube shorts and uploading content on social media.

These usage trends are forcing airlines to rethink in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) in the passenger cabin.

“What is clear is that the onboard connectivity experience today is largely insufficient for tomorrow,” notes Grady. “How that gets solved is where the airlines can add their ‘secret sauce’ to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market. Does latency matter to ‘my passengers’? Can I swap onboard media for a better streaming experience? Do passengers just want better beverage choices? Are paywalls and portals too much friction? All said, answering those questions are going to be mission-critical for airlines to ‘get right’ as that will influence their roadmap and partners more than anything.”

Known for delivering a superior on-board experience to passengers, from internet connectivity to media services, Anuvu currently has more than 1,100 aircraft installed with its products to date. Leveraging analytics and cloud technology while taking the best ideas of size and agility from LEO constellations and applying them into geosynchronous orbit is how Anuvu plans to meet these challenges and deliver a better entertainment and connectivity experience for airlines and their passengers.

Anuvu announced Norse Atlantic Airways as its newest airline customer in June, with Norse seeking to add its IFE technology to a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Norse Atlantic Airways

“The cloud gives us the resources to be very proactive in how we assign aircraft to capacity and vice versa. It also allows us to use the data to interpret what's likely to happen,” explains Marks.

Today, multiple LEO constellation providers consider the global IFC market a key revenue play. But “no one has found the golden bullet,” says Marks, explaining that regulatory and operational challenges must be solved before LEO satellites can be a force in delivering high-throughput services into the cabin.

Leveraging the Best Aspects of GEO and LEO

“Our view is that neither GEO nor LEO alone is sufficient to meet airline requirements,” says Marks, who predicts that there will be times even if LEO is the dominant solution that an airline will need to roll back onto geostationary orbit services.

While LEO excels for cloud collaboration and gaming on aircraft, “it’s not particularly good for streaming video or television,” Marks says. “We envision that our entertainment solutions will be broadcast to aircraft through a geostationary network long into the future. Both solutions will be necessary as we look forward, and our focus is ensuring that the systems we install today will be compatible with that future.”

Focused on disruption and innovation in the GEO space, Anuvu has teamed with Astranis, a micro-GEO satellite builder, to deploy an all-digital GEO constellation. The initial eight-satellite constellation will begin launching next year.

Last year, in August, Anuvu formed a new partnership with microGEO high throughput satellite manufacturer Astranis to launch the Anuvu Constellation, a total of eight microGEO satellites with first launch dates scheduled for early 2023. Pictured here is Arcturus, the first MicroGEO satellite from Astranis Space Technologies undergoing vibe testing in March. Anuvu

According to Marks, each sofa-sized satellite costs one-tenth of a traditional GEO satellite, and will offer users low latency, fast upload speeds, global coverage and multi-terabit scalability.

“We're designing our constellation to supplement our current network and we're also designing it to fill the gaps that we're going to see with LEO.”

This “umbrella GEO coverage” will serve as a backup to LEO capacity, which will likely be in short supply for airlines flying over rural North America given the focus of LEO throughput into those regions for consumer internet service. An aircraft flying over those regions may need alternate sources of connectivity. By seamlessly integrating these systems with all their other assets, Anuvu intends to usher in a new way of thinking about the business of satellite connectivity.

“Small GEO constellations have some compelling value propositions from an integrator’s viewpoint,” says NSR’s Grady. He points out that similar constellations to Anuvu’s are being planned to serve demand in Alaska and Peru.

“Ultimately airlines and end users will decide on which approach works best in terms of the end-to-end connectivity experience.”

Anuvu’s planned GEO constellation is not the only area in which this IFC player is innovating. The company also is enhancing the connectivity and media sides of its business.

Providing Faster In-cabin Connectivity

On the connectivity front, Anuvu’s new Dedicated Space™ solution merges modem technology with an AI-driven dynamic Network Management System to optimize network performance. The solution, already deployed on Southwest Airlines, offers passengers a way to enjoy faster satellite service with almost no delays, and an up to five-fold improvement in upload performance, according to Anuvu. The new solution recently won a Crystal Cabin Award in the IFEC and Digital Services category.

“We have installations that were done five plus years ago, where we're now upgrading the power of the cabin networks to allow for 100 passengers on the plane to be streaming simultaneously,” he says.

Anuvu customers such as Southwest are testing free Wi-Fi on their fleet of aircraft, while others are looking at different pricing models.

“Airlines are still figuring out what the right revenue model is,” says Marks, noting that some airlines are likely to offer free Wi-Fi only to their frequent flyers.

Anuvu recently added Airtime Market to its Airtime Portal technology, to allow passengers to order and pay for food and beverage items directly from their personal devices. Anuvu

“Those business models will continue to work out, but the overall theme is performance. It's very clear post-pandemic that everybody expects to be connected at all times. It's not just about speed; it’s also about reliability and the consistency of coverage across a route network.”

Delivering 4K Video via the Cloud

On the media side of its business, Anuvu used the aviation slowdown during the pandemic to rebuild its backend media architecture, which previously was a manual analog process to a digital, automated approach based on cloud technology provided by Amazon Web Services.

According to Marks, Anuvu’s content library is growing by thousands of titles each month. The content processing, from ingesting files from studios to delivering those files to satellite and content distribution networks for the airlines for loading on seatback screens, is now done in a highly automated cloud-based environment.

“We envision offering a marketplace of content and we are moving very quickly towards a world where airlines will be able to put content on the aircraft that appeals to every individual passenger,” he adds.

Marks says the seatback media upgrades are paying off in two ways – first, enabling airlines to deliver theatrical experiences in business class, and second, providing a draw to passengers in economy class to make food and beverage or other purchases from their seatback, leading to new ancillary revenue streams.

But it will be the airlines, says Grady, who will ultimately decide how quickly they adopt new capabilities that improve the passenger experience.

“Bottom Line – the satellite and space markets are changing faster than ever with new orbits, players, and business models. That is unlocking new connectivity-based experiences. What hasn’t changed is that airlines are the ultimate owners of their onboard experience…and will ultimately pick the ‘winners and losers’ in the sector. The ability to match the technology against those decisions airlines make on their passenger’s behalf is the true secret of success going forward,” he says.

Assessing the opportunities ahead, Marks expressed optimism for the future – a future where airlines can deliver differentiated experiences to their customers. He believes Anuvu is well positioned to partner with airlines to enable that future.

“Serving in a trusted integrator role with airlines to bring capacity, entertainment and retail -- all these different solutions together – is the place we want to be,” he concludes.