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We take being connected for granted. At home, in the office or in the air, the ability to connect our devices to the internet just happens. When it doesn’t, it restricts productivity, cuts off communication and valuable leisure time is lost.
Michael Skou Christensen, CCO of Satcom Direct, explains how Satcom Direct works hard to support customers throughout the connectivity journey.
We work hard at Satcom Direct to ensure that we can support our customers at every stage of flight. We call this supportability; it is what enables consistent, reliable and secure connectivity and is a multi-faceted collection of services that combine to provide customer support that wins awards, positions us at the top of industry surveys and most importantly, keeps our clients connected.
We’ve built the service on what we consider the four pillars of supportability: training, support through our Network Operations Center (NOC), AOG response, and the SD ecosystem of reliable products.
However, it all begins with communication and personal interaction to forge strong relationships built on trust. Wherever a customer is flying, a highly trained SD expert (a human, not an AI bot) is available 24/7/365. The team advises those wanting to maximize the SD hardware, software and value-added services, as well as deliver solutions for the times when coverage may be interrupted. As our global footprint expands, this also means that one of our SD representatives is rarely more than 12 hours away from a customer’s aircraft.
SD supports customers all the way through their connectivity journey.
Our Aviation IT training courses ensure crews understand the system verbiage, are familiar with the technical knowledge and, most importantly, have the confidence required to achieve the fastest, most robust resolution when needed. Our training centers deliver the industry’s only certified program for aviation IT professionals. The AeroIT-certified program is constantly updated to keep pace with new technologies and the latest cybersecurity needs and empowers flight departments, crew, and other aviation professionals to manage coverage interruptions, recognize smishing and vishing risks or anticipate areas where data transmission may need protecting.
When connectivity is interrupted, we find the root cause is often something as simple as a customer not understanding how something functions, a lack of knowledge about a specific system or an unexpected partner event. Our comprehensive training enhances knowledge and adds practical value to flight operations.
NOC at SD World Headquarters.
At the heart of SD supportability is the NOC. It is where our technical experts constantly monitor global aviation connectivity patterns, trends and behaviors. A combination of machine learning, human knowledge and AI is combined to recognize a developing problem or even the potential for a network outage before our customers and sometimes even our partners. In the event of an emerging cyber event, we have visibility on all the players and can proactively mitigate the risk while keeping our customer data secure. It’s all part of our standard service offer that follows the sun 24/7/365.
For customers far from home, it is even more essential to maintain mission-critical connectivity, as if the system is perceived to be down, it invariably means the aircraft stays on the ground. With our sophisticated network of connectivity know-how, we have the people and expertise available to get the airplane back in the air as quickly as possible.
Satcom Direct Gulfstream G550 stays connected with the Plane Simple antenna system.
Supportability cannot be achieved without understanding what our customers are trying to achieve, and how business aviation works. We run our own flight department, have a team of inhouse pilots and understand how to optimize connectivity. This is one of the reasons we created our own hardware, software and infrastructure to ensure fail-safe solutions for our global customers. For customers flying with our complete suite of SD Plane Simple® terminals, optimizing the SD Pro® operating system and maximizing the SD ecosystem, the network delivers technology purpose-built for aviation and that is inherently supportable. Connectivity must work and when it doesn’t the only measure of success is how well the customer is supported.
And, just in case you didn’t know, smishing uses fake texts to extract data, while vishing employs voice-generated AI to create fake voices that extract information from victims by sounding like someone familiar. Maybe it’s time to sign up for our AeroIT course?
BlueSky Business Aviation News | 5th September 2024 | Issue #762
