Originally Posted by
riggins
I think they should have gone with GoGo based upon their current routes. Most of their routes are over Canada and the USA where they could make use of Gogo's air to ground network. For Westjet routes into Caribbean Gogo's system switches to satellite.
The Ku band that Panasonic's system utilizes is inferior to ATG or the Ka satellite band.
Regardless, power at the seats is long overdue for Westjet
All the IFEC vendors were in contention for the system. Panasonic brought the best blend of knowledge, reliability, coverage and price. Gogo is a non-starter for all Caribbean, Hawaii and most Mexican flights as they always use a cell-based back channel (only good for IP based TV reception over water) - all the longest segments where IFEC take-up is highest, they also don't have running systems to demo their satellite streaming at the moment.
At the moment Ka spot beams have an edge over Ku, but Ku spot beams are coming later in 2015. Although the theoretical bandwidth of Ka systems is double that of Ku, in reality water vapour in the atmosphere attenuates the signal more in the Ka spectrum. In reality above cloud performance for Ka is about the same as Ku with the same angle spot beams. Ka is also problematic below cloud in any form of precipitation with attenuation up to several hundred fold (ie total signal loss), Ku is only slightly attenuated. From a coverage perspective, Ku has virtually every flight route in the world covered, Ka has quite a few coverage blind spots at the moment, cell-based is really only viable in the USA and Canada.
As Internet connectivity is only one aspect of an IFEC system that will likely see far fewer guests using significant bandwidth compared with video streaming from the on-board server, it is not the biggest deciding factor for IFEC selection. The most important component is the aircraft server components and in-cabin wifi delivery together with the software running the system.
The above decisions plus a whole raft more went into the selection of the Panasonic system over the past 18 months, including many sampled flights on airlines using relevant IFEC system components including American, United, Southwest, Jet Blue, Rouge, Alaska and Delta.