Voice services and aviation data networks

The presence of Internet connection within an aircraft brings out various possibilities. Apart from providing data services to the passengers, the available Internet connection could also be used for enhanced services like voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia access (entertainment). Providing voice services using the Internet connection requires the entire network architecture to be VoIP compliant. This involves selection of appropriate network devices and network architecture. Other factors that need to be considered while opting for VoIP are the cost factor and voice quality. The solution will be successful only when the overall cost per call is significantly less than RF based service provided by some carriers. This again leads to selecting appropriate networking devices and architecture that facilitate VoIP with least establishment cost. In this paper, the authors review the requirements of a successful VoIP implementation in the case of an Internet enabled aircraft, analyze the performance of voice traffic in the presence of satellite links, and suggest a network architecture to support voice communication within the Internet enabled aircraft.