Viasat, a global leader in satellite communications, announced a major advancement in its business aviation multi-orbit strategy, with plans to integrate Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite capacity into its JetXP in-flight broadband service.
The combination of Viasat’s ultra-high throughput Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) capabilities - including the advanced ViaSat-3 satellites - with flexible and resilient LEO capacity will further enhance JetXP’s reliable, consistent, high-performance connectivity, offering even greater redundancy and global coverage.
JetXP is designed to deliver the best available performance between GEO and LEO satellites by intelligently routing data in real-time. This optimizes the connectivity experience to meet different levels of customer demand, including applications more sensitive to latency and jitter - such as interactive gaming, high-definition video conferencing, and real-time cloud collaboration – on multiple devices at the same time.
Reflecting Viasat’s customer-first philosophy, the multi-orbit capabilities will be available as a single offering on selected JetXP plans, eliminating the need for multiple subscriptions. Customers will require an additional flat-panel Electronically Steered Antenna (ESA), designed to work seamlessly with JetXP’s existing tail-mount antennas and featuring fewer Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) for ease of installation. Further details will be unveiled next year.
Don Buchman, Aviation President at Viasat, said: “We’re proud that Viasat has successfully pioneered some of business aviation’s greatest in-flight connectivity innovations over the past 35 years, all with a focus on delivering the very best experience possible to stay ahead of evolving customer needs. That’s been a key part of our success and the reason why our premium solutions are widely adopted on more than 5,000 business jets worldwide.
“GEO remains our highly-efficient, scalable, and cost-effective backbone. It will continue to single-handedly meet the long-term needs of many business aviation customers, delivering significant capacity, proven reliability, and global coverage. However, we understand that certain requirements are better served with multi-orbit capabilities and have designed our network architecture to intelligently orchestrate this, as shown with our Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) payloads, which will deliver Arctic coverage on selected JetXP terminals from next year. The integration of Telesat Lightspeed LEO is another breakthrough and has been scheduled to enter commercial service in late 2027.”
The performance of all JetXP service plans, including the future multi-orbit options, will be measured using Viasat’s market-first iQe (In-flight Quality of Experience) concept. Purpose-built for business aviation, iQe will be available next year, using AI and advanced analytics to continuously monitor a broad range of network metrics in real-time. The results are instantly translated into a single Quality of Experience (QoE) score that clearly reflects the overall connectivity experience for principals, operators, and flight crew.
This customer-centric approach aligns with a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, which states that peak-speed metrics fail to capture the moments that truly matter to passengers, such as joining a board meeting without the connection dropping, closing multi-million dollar deals without disruption, or watching crucial sporting moments without buffering. The research calls for a broader range of metrics – such as latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth – to be evaluated, with the results presented in a clear, intuitive way that shows whether users accomplished their objectives without friction.
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