Thrane & Thrane last month introduced to the North American market Aero-HSD+, a data satcom system noteworthy for being the first such product the Danish firm will market and sell under its own name after providing core technology for airborne satcom systems to Honeywell, Thales and Universal Avionics.

Optimized for mid- to high-end business jets, Aero-HSD+ integrates global voice, fax and cockpit communications and includes a version with two high-speed Inmarsat Swift64 data channels linked together to provide a 128-kbps data rate. At the NBAA Convention in Orlando, Fla., last month, Thrane & Thrane officials said Aero-HSD+ is smaller, lighter and more compact than any comparable existing Inmarsat aeronautical satcom terminal. It combines the Aero-H+ and Swift64 Inmarsat services, and is available in two versions. The Aero-H+ service provides two global voice, fax and PC modem data channels and one packet data channel for cockpit communications.

The four-channel 6 MCU (19 pounds) configuration provides a single Swift64 channel (64 kbps); the five-channel 8 MCU (23 pounds) box features two Swift64 channels to achieve the 128-kbps data capability for ISDN, mobile packet data service (MPDS) and G4 fax. With MPDS the user pays only for the volume of data transmitted, not for the connection time.

The company said Aero-HSD+ can be easily upgraded to the next-generation Inmarsat high-speed satellite platform by swapping LRUs. The system is slated to become available to customers at the end of this year. List prices (excluding high-gain conformal Arinc 741 antennas and installation) are $175,000 for the four-channel configuration and $232,000 for the five-channel dual Swift64 version.