While researching last week’s Hot Topic we naturally checked out some of the latest IFE technology and were surprised to find an interesting fact: IFE manufacturers are rushing to eliminate the standard architectures in favor of new approaches in an effort to reduce weight, power, and box count. In fact, one IFE startup, Lumexis, is proposing a system without the standard SEB’s (seat electronics box). Their development uses fiber optic cables a few thousands of an inch thick which will deliver astounding bandwidth to each passenger and consists basically of head-end sources of digital entertainment options such as movies, games and data, and a small, very high technology, switch that talks and listens to each passenger seat display via individual human-hair sized fibers.

As a basic refresher course in IFE, you will remember that your typical high technology system on airplanes consists of three primary components; a head-end source of entertainment options such movie and game servers, live television signals, audio entertainment, etc. Next we need a network for distribution of the electronic entertainment, usually sent via wires or cables such as those in home or office computer networks. And lastly, a seat electronics box that receives the separate data packets destined for each seat display/control. Lumexis on the other hand, uses an individual fiber(s) back to the head-end for each passenger. A 2-way dialog is established between the central switch and the passenger display and thus bypassing the need for network backbones, SEB’s, and a lot of electronics required to help passengers listen, watch and communicate with the central computer from their seat. While the newest aircraft like the Airbus A380 and the forthcoming Boeing B787 plan for fiber optic backbones to carry digital traffic to and from a server and central distribution points, they differ from the Lumexis solution in many ways….the biggest of which is bandwidth. One Lumexsis source described their IFE solution as providing each passenger with “ten’s of gigabits” of data”. Talk about growth….

In reality, the Lumexis solution is taking advantage of the millions of dollars the Telcos poured into the ground-based telephone and video communication systems. Moreover, by using these technologies the airlines a system that is lighter, more reliable, smaller and lower in power needs. While we are on that subject, yes, each seat still needs power, but power is supplied from a remote box and consists of wires to each display…not a bulky box at each seat or seat group. It can be remotely located under the aircraft floor or in a sidewall. Yes, there are drawbacks such as the fragility of fiber optics and the issues surrounding repair and maintenance. However, airlines learned to cope with megabit cable networks and are now dealing with gigabit copper cables and we don’t see any difference in the learning curve for fiber optics. Perhaps, fiber optic’s time is coming as more than a backbone for IFE. Just as the Sony Passport system introduced a quantum leap in technology by building a fiber optic backbone and was soon followed by others in the mid 90’s, we now may soon see requirements for low emission systems and high security connections to passengers on airplanes. Watch fiber!