ViaSat has purchased the customers of Arinc Inc.’s SkyLink aeronautical broadband service and will be transitioning them to ViaSat’s Yonder service in a transaction that will add about 80 business jets to the Yonder customer fleet, Carlsbad, Calif.-based ViaSat announced Oct. 19.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Annapolis, Md.-based Arinc and ViaSat have long been partners in developing Arinc’s aeronautical service, with ViaSat contributing much of the SkyLink gear as a supplier.
ViaSat said the switch to Yonder will give former SkyLink customers a broader coverage area — a near-global link of most airline destination cities — and the same level of connectivity. ViaSat said its Yonder Ku-band satellite links afford download speeds of between one and two megabits per second, with uploads at 128 kilobits per second to 1.024 megabits per second.
The acquisition includes Arinc’s U.S. Federal Aviation Administration authorizations to install aeronautical connectivity gear on Boeing Business Jets, Cessna Citation X and Challenger 64 business aircraft, ViaSat said.