“That brings a tremendous amount of capability and capacity to our ecosystem,” said Claudio D’Amico, Viasat’s v-p for OEMs, partners, and business aviation fleets. “With those satellites, we have a lot more flexibility in terms of how we iterate and design solutions for our customers.”

Customer feedback indicated a preference for harmonized service plans, he explained. “The primary feedback was [that] satellite communications is a very complex technology, but the way you buy it doesn’t have to be. It’s having the additional capability of the ViaSat-3 satellites, and the flexibility those satellites bring…and a goal to try to make things simpler on how we deliver the service to the customer.”

Each ViaSat-3 satellite was designed for 1 terabit per second of capacity and has dynamic beamforming capability. “We can form a beam to a specific aircraft and follow that aircraft throughout the footprint of the satellite,” he said. “This enables a consistent experience in areas where you have a lot of demand.”

Improved performance centers on North America, the area of highest demand, but the ViaSat-3 satellites also cover the rest of the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, and Asia. ViaSat-3 does not yet cover Western Europe and Africa, where JetXP runs on Viasat’s GX network.

In the revamped portfolio, Viasat is offering three global service tiers, from light to medium to unlimited, available for Honeywell JetWave and JetWave X systems and Gogo’s Plane Simple Ka satcom.

Viasat has published manufacturer suggested retail prices for all plans using JetWave X and Plane Simple Ka terminals, starting at less than $11,000 per month for unlimited global service, with fixed pricing for the term of the service agreement, either one or three years.

“All of these plans have priority in terms of network,” D’Amico said, “as well as uncapped speeds, which we’ve done for some of the other plans that we’ve had in the past.”

Viasat isn’t offering regional coverage plans because these wouldn’t meet customers’ needs for simplicity. “That’s our message: simplify the pricing, simplify the experience, and predictable budgets,” said Adam Sheppard, Honeywell’s general manager for services and connectivity. “It’s meant to be simple for the end customer. The price points that Honeywell and Viasat have created are extremely compelling for a global service, so there wasn’t a need to complicate it more with regional-based pricing.”

While low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satcom is gaining popularity, GEO satcom remains a significant part of the market. This is evident in the number of customers opting for dual-orbit satcom, installing both a LEO and a GEO system on the same airplane. This can prevent coverage outages if one system has a problem and also helps in regions where LEO satcom is prohibited but GEO is allowed, such as China, or where LEO is being jammed.

“Honeywell’s original projection for customers in the business aviation market for taking two systems was around 10% to 15%,” Sheppard said. “We’re seeing that number closer to 40% to 50%, and it’s significantly higher than we anticipated.” 

JetWave X also has built-in redundancy because it runs on both the ViaSat-3 network and the former Inmarsat GX network, which Viasat now owns. “We’re a single system that has redundancy built into it, which is great for customers,” he said. JetWave X’s software also lets it work alongside competing satcom systems, according to Sheppard. “We will make sure that you have a connection the entire time, no matter what network you’re on.”

Another JetWave X feature is Honeywell's advanced data control (ADC), which “combines multiple satellite and air-to-ground links at different orbital altitudes,” according to the company, including GEO, MEO, high elliptical orbit, and LEO “into one optimized onboard network.” Using ADC, customers will see traffic prioritized by application “through intelligent network switching and [tailoring] bandwidth for different user groups like VIPs, crew, and guests.” If there are outages or coverage gaps, ADC reacts in real-time to deliver the optimal connection.

D’Amico is urging customers to upgrade to the latest software version to take advantage of the added capacity over North America. “It’s a significant amount of capacity that we’re bringing to that customer base,” he said.