TC Minutes

WAEA Technical Committee Meeting
July 31, 1998
Stockholm, Sweden

R. Salter, WAEA TC Director, welcomed the committee to Stockholm and extended deepest appreciation to Lars Aden of SAS for hosting the meeting. The attendees introduced themselves. Earl Nicks agreed to take minutes for the meeting.

The WAEA anti-trust guidelines were duly read and made available as handouts. It was suggested that the antitrust guidelines be posted on the web site so that they could be easily referred to.

R. Salter then reviewed the TC mission statement. He emphasized the need to impart technical information in an understandable way to the membership. He described the media that the committee is currently using to communicate to the membership. These include the WAEA website, WAEA Educational Workshops, AVION magazine, and other aviation trade publications. It was also noted the Internet Working Group is working on audio webcasting of the next TC meeting.

R. Soucy motioned that the minutes of the May 15^th TC meeting be adopted as posted on the website. The motion was seconded by Earl Nicks and unanimously carried.

Name Change

The Committee discussed the need to change the name of the committee from Technical Committee to Technology Committee. It was suggested that the new name would be more descriptive of the TC mission. Attendees agreed the name "Technology" would be more interesting to some airlines and suppliers and may serve to help increase attendance at the meetings. The word "Technical" was thought to be too broad and held differing meanings to various members, while "Technology" was better understood. M. Irizarry motioned to change the name to "Technology Committee." R. Briski seconded the motion and it was carried unanimously. R. Salter agreed to take the committee’s recommendation to the WAEA Board at their next meeting.

Annual Conference and Exhibition – Durban, South Africa

R. Salter reviewed the information posted on the website about the upcoming annual conference in Durban, October 13-16. He made extra copies of the conference agenda available to the attendees. He reminded the attendees to check the WAEA website for referrals to travel agencies that were offering reduced airfares to South Africa.

July Board Meeting

R. Salter reviewed items of particular interest to the TC from the WAEA Board meeting of July 23-24. He described the Board’s strategic planning session. He noted the Board had been asked, "Where do we want WAEA to be in 3 years?" at the meeting. Discussion resulted in a decision to follow four initiatives to improve the value of the association to its members: Information, Education, Standards, and Inclusion. He noted that staff was preparing a draft plan to accomplish the initiatives for the Board’s review. Eric Cochez, Air France, requested clarification of the WAEA’s relationship with other standardizing groups (e.g., Arinc, Inc.). R. Salter noted he would be posting a directory of the WAEA working groups and liaisons on the website. Eric said that this would be helpful to airlines to help them plan and budget for their attendance at the various meetings.

CEI Deliverables

He reported that the four deliverables from the CEI to the TC were discussed at the Board meeting and the Board had approved continuation of funding for the AEEC CEI activities. E. Nicks noted that all four deliverables were on track for adoption consideration by the AEEC General Session in October, except that Part 5 (Wire Bundle and Equipment Installation Guidelines) may need continued work through early 1999.

White Paper - HD

R. Salter noted that Miltope’s white paper on hard disk technology was now posted on the website. He requested that all members review and comment on it via e-mail, and be prepared to revise or adopt it as a WAEA project paper at the next TC meeting.

Seat Committee Report

He noted that Boeing’s paper on seat approval guidance from the TSO workshop was also posted on the website. This paper is for information only.

Life-cycle issues for IFE

He noted a suggestion had been made for the TC to establish a new WG to compile information on the issues that make up life-cycle costs for IFE (e.g., hardware maintenance, software upgrades, etc.). He requested that anyone interested in pursuing this information via a WG contact him. If sufficient interest was expressed, then a new WG could be established.

IATA liaison representative

Rich stated he was working with Norm Vincent of IATA to identify a TC liaison to that organization.

DVD-WG

The Digital Versatile Disk WG did not make a presentation. They sent a written report summarizing their progress to date and indicating that they would be meeting in August to prepare an invitation for all interested parties to join the specification effort. The specification will be similar to WAEA 0395, but will be specific to DVD content.

SC-WG

I. Leuca presented a report on the Smart Card (SC) WG. Recent progress includes telecon meetings in July, contributions from WG members to the proposed specification, and descriptions of GSM/SIM applications. Their immediate objective is to draft a white paper on SC technologies and airline applications. An initial version of that document is now ready for review by the WG.

He announced the table of contents for the specification document, which included the following sections:

• a reference listing of the many related documents
• description of smart card applications and cabin services applications
• concept of operation (for boarding check in, security check in , IFE usage, telephony, onboard shopping, etc.)
• description of the types of smart cards
• description of the smart card reader
• the airborne architecture for SCs
• Interfaces and protocols for the onboard system
• Security (architecture, card authentication, software download)
• Software data loading

He noted that the WG’s next steps were to review and collect feedback on the draft document from within the WG and conduct a meeting with financial industry representatives. They will submit the next draft version to the TC. The WG goal is to complete the final version by the end of this year.

Satellite-WG

R. Soucy presented the status of the Satellite-WG by first noting that the group had thus far focused on two issues: program content licensing issues and standards for satellite TV installation onboard.

M. Childers presented a paper entitled "The application of copyright laws to the use of live television in IFE." He explained the US copyright act of 1976 classified motion picture exhibition into two broad categories: private home use and public performances. Only the copyright holder of the motion picture has the right to "perform" it publicly (i.e., "…at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside a normal circle of family and its social acquaintances are gathered."). He explained that this includes the commercial and corporate aircraft cabin. It means that airlines must secure licenses from the copyright holders before showing the motion pictures. Since there are so many copyright holders this could present a logistical, expensive problem. He posed the question: Is the interest in "live TV" content driven or delivery driven? That is, are airlines most interested in the content/programming that satellites could deliver, or the convenient satellite delivery mechanism itself? He further recommended that the Satellite WG limit the scope of its consideration to technologies that can be practically implemented in IFE given the limitation of the copyright laws. That is, the WG might provide airlines with information on technologies available that might permit them to select and license specific programs being carried on various satellites in advance (such as live sporting events), rather than using 100% of the programming of several satellite channels.

Attendees expressed their appreciation to him for his presentation and for increasing their awareness of the licensing issues. The TC also discussed what future steps it should take regarding licensing issues. Since they are more legal and business issues rather than technology issues, there may be a better forum outside of the satellite-WG to address them. R. Salter will discuss and resolve this issue with R. Soucy offline.

R. Soucy then reported that D. Kirkland was leading the effort to create a strawman for satellite TV standards. He presented a block diagram of the airborne satellite TV system, and described the following items to be addressed in the standard:

1. Equipment envelope and mounting

• Low noise block (LNB) envelope and mounting
• Antenna controller (CTRL) envelope and mounting
• Antenna envelope and mounting
• Receiver Unit (REC) envelope and mounting

2. Proximity requirements

• LNB to antenna
• CTRL to antenna
• CTRL to CEC

3. System interfaces

• Arinc 428 control interface
• Video/audio interface
• Arinc 429 navigation interface
• Data interfaces

4. Wiring and integration areas

• Sat TV integration area
• Cabin equipment center (CEC)
• Standard wiring bundle

The Satellite WG will continue to hold telephone meetings in-between the TC meetings and will hold a meeting on the Thursday prior to the next TC meeting.

Displays-WG

The Displays-WG did not report at this meeting. However, an Action Item was presented from the CEI to the WG. The action is to investigate the electrical interface and protocol for next-generation in-seat displays, and to propose a standard. J. Cardon will assist R. Salter in describing this Action Item to the Displays-WG.

TG-WG (Transaction/Gaming)

The TG-WG did not report at this meeting. R. Salter announced that Mark Schneider, SkyMall, has agreed to Chair this WG, with Mark Wheeler, Intergame, assisting.

Internet-WG

M. Childers agreed to become Chairman of the Internet-WG. He indicated the group would look into two subject areas prior to the next TC meeting: (1) Video streaming/MPEG 4, and (2) Webcasting (audio and teletext). He agreed to assemble a list of items needed to make the webcasting work effectively (such as presentation slides to be in PowerPoint format, etc.) These will be e-mailed to the next meeting’s presenters ASAP.

IV. Liaison reports

R. Salter reported that Barney Graves had turned the seat group liaison responsibility over to Sheryl Bryant, Boeing. B. Graves had submitted a draft specification for PRAM audio entitled "General Requirements for Recording and Duplicating of Airborne Software for Pre-recorded Announcements." It was requested that the TC members read and comment on this paper, and consider it for adoption at its next meeting.

R. Salter requested that each of the liaison representatives prepare a description of the organization to which they are liaison and present it at the next TC meeting. The description should briefly describe the "who, what, when, where, and how" of each organization, and it will be posted on the website as well.

V. Next meeting date/location

The next WAEA TC meeting will be held in Southern California on November 13, 1998. The meeting was adjourned at 12:15PM.