Satellite communications service provider Satcom Direct gave live demonstrations of Inmarsat’s broadband global area network (BGAN) land mobile technology at last month’s NBAA Convention. The precursor to the aviation-specific SwiftBroadband data service, BGAN provides a satellite link to users at speeds equivalent to a DSL connection. Current Swift64 data connections are closer in speed to those of dial-up modems, but the higher data rates should be available to business jet operators in about a year.

At NBAA 2005 Satcom Direct also offered demos of its Aero X service, which allows Swift64 customers to increase their high-speed-data rates by up to 400 percent when using EMS Satcom’s cabin network accelerator, or CNX-200, and a compatible data system available from major satcom manufacturers. Aero X is claimed to provide data speeds of up to one megabyte per second worldwide. Satcom Direct was founded in 1987 to provide satcom users with a single, worldwide phone number, a service that today remains a cornerstone of the company’s service mix under the brand name Global One Number.