Honeywell Aerospace is bringing to market a new lightweight, onboard router that the manufacturer says will be offered at a fraction of the cost, will take less space, and consume far less power than existing routers.

To reach market in May, the new GoDirect Router is estimated to be half the size and weight of traditional products and one-third the price. In addition, it will use about 30 percent of the power of existing systems, the company estimated.

The GoDirect router also comes with built-in security software that provides security from laptops and other connected systems brought on board, both on the ground and while the aircraft is in the air. This threat protection software, also to be available in May, further will be offered as an upgrade option on legacy Honeywell routers.

The new router is designed to lower one of the major barriers to connectivity on airplanes, said John Peterson, senior director, Connectivity Services, Honeywell Aerospace.

Since rolling out its GoDirect suite of connectivity services in 2016, Honeywell has experienced about 300 percent growth in subscriptions, Peterson said. But it also has received substantial feedback from operators about the size and costs of onboard routers. “The barrier to entry has been really high,” he said, saying operators asked, “Why is it so expensive to put routers on the airplane; why does it take so long; and why do we have to take cabins apart to rewire them? Everything that [has been provided] is too big, too heavy, too hot, and consumes too much power." Peterson said, "We realized, we have an opportunity…to bring a completely disruptive product to the aerospace market.”

The new router is designed for ease of installation. For aircraft with older, legacy systems, the new router will simply plug into the same location, a swap that should take about 30 minutes, Peterson said.

The router can be installed anywhere on the airplane. Multiple routers can be installed without needing extensive wiring throughout the airplane and at the same cost or less of a single legacy router. Installing multiple routers can provide redundancy, with a Wi-Fi backup.

Peterson, who likened the router to using a new lightweight tablet rather than a decade-old laptop, noted that most routers on the market today were designed about a decade ago. But technology since then “has changed so dramatically,” he said, noting that the market now demands distributed processing where tablets, mobile phones, and laptops all can interact with the same system, along with streaming services.

The router provides all these capabilities and access to Honeywell’s GoDirect software and services as on Honeywell’s larger CNX-900, the company added.

Honeywell first is certifying the system on its Bombardier Challenger 300, but has a number of installation and certification projects planned for the next few months, Peterson added. Honeywell’s goal is to have the system certified on most Bombardier, Dassault, and Gulfstream aircraft in the first half of the year, he said.