Satcom Direct (SD), the business aviation solutions provider, has unveiled the completed upgrade to its Network Operations Center (NOC) at SD World Headquarters in Melbourne, FL. With an increased footprint, the addition of cutting-edge technology and installation of an impressive 72x10ft digital wall displaying real time global customer connectivity activity, the enhanced NOC provides SD customers with significantly augmented customer and product support.
The evolution of the state-of-the art operations center has been driven by the need to intelligently aggregate, collate and analyze the increasing amounts of data generated by business aircraft activity. Information collected from the SD Xperience nose-to-tail portfolio of hardware, software and infrastructure solutions ensures the NOC is fully aware of the network status of each customer’s aircraft globally.
Using a powerful combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning, data is aggregated and displayed on the enlarged screen. The NOC optimizes the enhanced visibility into the overall health of each individual aircraft and combines it with intelligent data analysis to identify any connectivity outage, degradation or systemic issues. This initiates the implementation of corrective action, often during flight. Predictive alerting is also triggered by the service intelligence platform enabling remedial action well ahead of potential issues.
The continuous monitoring of the aircraft status underpins the SD support motto “we know before you know” as the upgraded facility delivers improved situational awareness to the global support team through the automated analysis of data trends and patterns. An enhanced average response time of below five minutes, and 24/7/365 support, ensures customer issues are handled as efficiently and effectively as possible. Cybersecurity management has also been enhanced with abnormal patterns of data behavior highlighted to stimulate immediate mitigative action. In addition to technical corrective action, SD alerts crew to advise passengers of any necessary action needed to prevent potential cyber events.
SD prides itself on strong partner relationships and the latest NOC enhancements also bolster these connections. The upgraded technology can identify systemic issues across the partner satellite networks to support implementation of remedial measures ensuring clients experience limited downtime if an issue occurs.
“Aircraft generate large volumes of multi-faceted data that provide clear insight into aircraft connectivity. If the data is behaving differently than expected we will often be aware of it before either our customer, the end user or our partners which means we can begin to fix issues more quickly,” says SD Founder & CEO Jim Jensen. “The investment we’ve made ensures we can extract meaningful information about usage and/or degradation, enabling us to be even more proactive in issue resolution. It puts our support team ahead of the aircraft for years to come.”
SD claims top spot for sixth year running in industry leading product support survey
The industry has further confirmed its appreciation of SD’s commitment to customer support by positioning the company in the top spot of this year’s Aviation International News (AIN) Product Support Survey. The annual survey, which ranks customer support for cabin electronics, ranked SD in the top position for its overall service. It scored a mighty 9.4 for its AOG response time which, in an age when connectivity is deemed a pre-requisite for flight, highlights how the SD strategy is proving effective. Its technical reps won out once again for their expert knowledge and committed customer service, and SD also gained the most top scores taking five highest spots out of the ten categories.
“We are committed to providing the best user experience possible and are proud to find ourselves in first position once again. Maintaining our number one ranking for six years in a row requires investment, dedication and continual development of our support product. We continue to raise the bar and it’s great to know our customers appreciate this commitment,” concludes Jensen.
