Ball Aerospace Develops Advanced Gateway For In-flight Communications

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. said it is developing a global information gateway that will carry voice, video conferencing, Internet connectivity and broadband data services to aircraft in flight over land and oceans.

The company said it is developing the service, which it calls Airlink High Speed Data (HSD), “for one of its customers,” but gave no further identification of the customer.

The gateway will use the new Inmarsat Aero-HSD service, Aero H/H+ antennas, which are widely installed on airline and business planes, and the Inmarsat satellites.

“The Airlink HSD avionics are easily integrated with most existing Aero-H/H+ Satcom antennas, including the Airlink High Gain Antenna System, an Aero-H Satcom product that Ball has been delivering for more than 10 years,” Ball Aerospace said.