PARIS — Panasonic Avionics Corp. will lease capacity on Telesat’s Telstar 11N satellite to provide commercial airline passengers with in-flight voice and data connectivity on the north and mid-Atlantic Ocean routes, Panasonic and Telesat announced June 13.
Hamburg, Germany-based Panasonic Avionics is stitching together a global network of Ku-band satellite capacity to deliver its Global Communications Suite of voice, data and broadcast services to commercial airlines.
Earlier this year Panasonic announced it had purchased a majority stake in Aeromobile Communications Ltd. from Telenor of Norway, and that Aeromobile will remain a stand-alone company offering Panasonic’s eXPhone service on commercial airlines.
Panasonic has signed several satellite bandwidth leases in recent months. In March it announced a contract with Intelsat for capacity on the Intelsat 14 satellite covering Africa, and with Australian Satellite Communications for additional capacity on the GE-23 satellite over the Pacific Ocean.
Ottawa, Canada-based Telesat’s Telstar 11N, located in geostationary orbit at 37.5 degrees west longitude, will give Panasonic Avionics coverage of the Atlantic Ocean region from the Arctic to the equator on a single beam.
“The capabilities and single-beam coverage of the North Atlantic offered by Telstar 11N give Panasonic important operational advantages in providing inflight broadband and TV to our commercial airline customers,” David Bruner, Panasonic’s vice president of global communications services, said in a statement.
