SES and Viva launched a multi-orbit inflight connectivity service for Viva’s Airbus aircraft, covering a fleet of 60 A320 and 40 A321 jets over time.
Viva will be the first Mexico-based airline to use SES’s new electronically steered array (ESA) antenna, sized at less than seven centimetres tall. SES says the ESA antenna is designed to deliver reliable connectivity to the SES multi-orbit network, and that connecting to satellites in different orbits provides consistent coverage regardless of location.
How the Viva inflight service is built around SES’s ESA and multi-orbit capacity
The planned deployment relies on SES’s multi-orbit network, with the inflight setup using SES’s electronically steered array antenna as the aircraft-side element. The overall approach pairs the company’s resilient MEO capacity from SES’s own MEO constellation with LEO capacity powered by TV ISLA’s partner’s constellation.
On performance, SES and its partners describe the hybrid multi-orbit approach as delivering more than 500 Mbps of low-latency trunk capacity, with that trunk capacity intended to support an on-island fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout to approximately 1,500 homes in the coming months.
Providencia Island broadband expansion extends the same hybrid MEO/LEO approach
Separate from the Viva inflight work, SES and TV ISLA will expand broadband access on Providencia Island in Colombia’s San Andre9s Archipelago using a hybrid MEO and LEO satellite connectivity approach. SES and TV ISLA position the project as providing resilient, high-performance connectivity for the island.
The partners say the project will directly benefit approximately 7,000 residents, as well as thousands of tourists visiting each year. They also describe Providencia Island as sitting 700 kilometres north of the mainland in the Caribbean Sea, with historically poor connectivity.
What to watch: fleet scale and the two-orbit mix
The headline for Viva is the aircraft scale—60 A320 and 40 A321 set to offer the SES solution in the coming years—alongside the move to SES’s compact ESA antenna. For the island broadband side, the key design constraint is the dual-orbit mix—SES-managed MEO capacity complemented by TV ISLA partner-powered LEO capacity—meant to feed low-latency trunk capacity that can backhaul an FTTH build.