40 Success Stories: When Donica and Display Interactive Teamed Up For Wireless IFE
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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of APEX EXPO this year, we’re looking back at APEX members’ most significant achievements. Today, we inspect how a partnership between hardware company Donica and software company Display Interactive resulted in a high-powered wireless in-flight entertainment system.
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In April 2017, Qatar Airways tested a wireless in-flight entertainment (IFE) prototype created together by Donica and Display Interactive. By April 2018, the carrier had completed a retrofit of the solution across its medium-haul Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft.
The solution makes use of Donica’s W-6000 wireless local area network (WLAN) system together with Display Interactive’s IFE software, UGO. Branded as Oryx One Play by Qatar Airways, it was completely customized to provide a consistent experience with the carrier’s existing Oryx One seatback entertainment offering.
Tarek El Mitwalli, CEO of Display Interactive, commented, “Thanks to our packaging process and efficient synchronization platform, each month the Qatar Airways engineering team can update Oryx One Play with more or less exactly the same content offered on its long-haul routes, excluding the early window content. We believe Oryx One Play hosts the most content of any wireless IFE service in the world.”
“We believe Oryx One Play hosts the most content of any wireless IFE service in the world” – Tarek El Mitwalli, Display Interactive.
The system also included an ultra-high-definition moving map designed by Display Interactive, for which Qatar Airways was launch customer. Software updates for Oryx One Play typically take just three minutes, and in just eighteen months of operation the companies have said its reliability rate is impressively high.
Billy Vauls, Donica’s director of engineering, explained, “The Qatar Airways installation was a very demanding and stressful time as it marked first-time installations for both the equipment and the aircraft type, but once we’d really got the hang of things the retrofit only took a day to complete.”
Later this year, Display Interactive and Donica will begin working to install their wireless IFE solution on board an aircraft in the Qatar Executive fleet. “This VVIP aircraft will press us further to deliver a quality product to a company which demands the very best from vendors,” concluded Vauls.
See more posts from the 40 Success Stories campaign.