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Uncluttering the IFE
The aerospace industry is at a remarkable period in time.
On the one hand, there is a vast backlog of aircraft that are waiting to be delivered from airframers,
pointing towards an unprecedented boom in the industry.
On the other, increasing competitiveness is lowering margins and augmenting the need to reduce operational
costs and build a loyal passenger base.
Continuous innovation in the cabin- and flight systems have brought along some savings, but there’s an
entirely new field of personalized cabin services through which the industry can generate substantial ancillary revenue.
Utilizing such new avenues of income requires disruptive changes in technologies.
Connectivity in the cabin is one such change.
Passengers are keen on becoming more connected and want to use their own devices but at the same time do not
want to give up seatback screens.
This is evident by data provided by IATA in it's 2018 Global Passenger Survey.
It showed that 54% of passengers would choose to watch digital content on a seatback device, as opposed to
36% preferring their own devices.
This presents a big dilemma for the industry. Shift to wireless IFE and save money on hardware while risk
passenger discontent? Or keep relying on seatback IFE and the costs (upgrades, upkeep, maintenance)
associated with that.
Being a passenger experience (PaxEx) driven industry, this decision doesn’t come easy.
And then there is also the need to integrate connectivity for passengers and modern avionics.
All this adds more layers of complexities to not just the hardware, but also the systems software
architecture.
Going wireless – complexity or solution?
A possible solution that resolves these pain points is the wireless seatback in-flight entertainment and
connectivity (IFEC) system. However, there is a lot of skepticism around it, such as:
How can wireless seatback serve on a high capacity long-haul wide-body
fleet?
How data and content can be delivered to the vessel and then to all the
seats without network issues?
How can a seamless ecosystem be created along with the seatback screens
and own devices?
How can early-window content be secured?
Does it require specialized seat back hardware?
While designing and creating digital architecture for a wireless seatback (WSB) IFEC, Axinom addressed all
of these industry concerns, requirements.
A major focus was to make the system standardized, easy to implement and adopt while still keeping PaxEx at
the center.
Standardization – Costs and sustainability
Wireless seatback ecosystem utilizes hardware and operating system agnostic approach with containerized
deployment and orchestration using Docker and Docker Swarm.
This enables the use of commercial off-the-shelf hardware solutions for seatback devices and flexibility in
choosing the software components. As a result, the industry is witnessing a new level of autonomy in
building IFEC solutions.
In addition to autonomy, there are also other immediate benefits.
Benefits such as wire-harness weight and thus fuel savings, cost-effective upgrades and updates, reduced
content cycle times, easier replacements and lower maintenance needs among others.
The Digital Framework – An Ecosystem
The wireless seatback IFEC is built on a highly capable technology stack that takes care of the entire
digital media workflow, from ingestion to security. Also providing seamless delivery and synchronization
capabilities across multiple communication pipes.
It integrates several unique and innovative features that enable the industry to personalize the passenger
experience and leverage on integrations to capitalize on
ancillary revenues.
The robust backend consists of data and content management through Axinom's On-Board Entertainment solution.
Content protection comes via Axinom DRM which is a best-in-class multi-DRM service. Together, these solutions power the process of media protection,
management, and publishing. Synchronization between ground and aircraft is being handled by the secure bidirectional data synchronization
system, Axinom Sync.
On-ground and Onboard
The highly automated on-ground infrastructure gives the industry full control over the distribution process
and parameters, such as which flight path or fleet gets what content, who gets access to the system or the
offloaded data and much more.
The on-ground infrastructure is complemented by an equally capable one on-board the aircraft.
Among other functionality, it provides control over data transfer methods and prioritization.
Based on data criticality, economy, and availability, data could be transferred via satellites, a cellular
connection, wifi, physical storage or a combination of them.
The system acknowledges the sophisticated nature of the transfers and hence, provides important features of
interruption management, incremental updates, and real-time sync capabilities.
The final piece - Axinom IFS
A crucial piece of the puzzle, working behind the scenes and supporting standardization, is Axinom's On-Board Connectivity
solution.
The IFS handles all data and services both on-ground and on the aircraft.
It handles numerous integrations for provisioning seamless connectivity options for passengers using
personalized captive portals, use of own devices through custom apps or QR code, online and offline
advertising, e-commerce, destination-related services and much more.
To address the issue of network congestion, the system leverages Axinom’s hybrid storage technology that
connects server-based and a seat-centric approach to reduce network usage by pre-populating the most common
and early-window content right on the seatback devices.
Consequently reducing network congestion and providing fault tolerance in case of a network outage so that
all seatback devices can operate independently using the pre-placed content while staying disconnected.
Third-party compatibility
One of the advantages of being built upon Axinom’s aero platform is the fact that the wireless seatback
system is highly customizable and integrates well with other third-party systems and services.
It's built using containerized and standardized architecture.
This makes the process of management, delivery, and deployment of the various systems and related data much
more easier.
Another advantage of using a containerized approach is the removal of the hassle of certification from
individual services