LiveTV was a major provider of airline in-flight entertainment systems. Originally a joint venture of Harris Corporation and BE Aerospace (BE Aerospace's interest subsequently sold to Thales Group), it was a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue Airways Corporation from its acquisition in 2002 until its sale to Thales in 2014. It had its headquarters in

Melbourne, Florida Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando. As of th2020 Decennial Census there was a population of 84,678. The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population. ...

. The company was one of the "big four" manufacturers of in-flight entertainment systems, along with Panasonic Avionics Corporation, Thales Group, and

Rockwell Collins Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Comp ...

History

Live TV was initially introduced by In-Flight Phone Corporation in 1997. Dimitrios Lalos VP Engineering at In-Flight conceived the idea of Live Satellite broadcasting in 1995 using phased array antennas mounted on the top of the fuselage of the aircraft. Original designs were introduced in 1995 with an Atlanta based microwave company. After In-Flight Phone's bankruptcy, Harris bought the idea from In-Flight Phone for 4.5 million dollars. Live TV bought the business from Harris in 1998. In June 2006, Live TV won a 1 MHz wide block of frequencies in the 800 MHz air-ground telephone auction conducted by the U.S.

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC). This license will allow air-ground-air communications to take place. An affiliate of Aircell was the winner of the larger 3 MHz wide block of frequencies. Plans for utilizing these frequencies had not been announced by mid-2007. On June 9, 2008, JetBlue announced that it will buy Verizon's

Airfone Airfone was an air-ground radiotelephone service developed by MCI founder John D. Goeken, and operated under the names ''Airfone'', ''GTE Airfone'', and Verizon Airfone. Airfone allowed passengers to make telephone calls (later including data ...

(Formerly: GTE Airfone, Formerly: Airfone) service. Continental Airlines began to add LiveTV to all of its

Boeing 737 Next Generation The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boeing ...

and Boeing 757-300 aircraft beginning in January 2009. In March 2011, LiveTV announced it would install on-board

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

connectivity for over 200

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

aircraft, using the ViaSat Ka-band satellite service. United was the second airline to announce the rollout of this high speed internet service, since LiveTV's parent company, JetBlue, entered an MOU with ViaSat in September 2010 in order to equip 160 JetBlue aircraft. On March 13, 2014, Reuters reported that the division would be sold to Thales for $400 million. . The sale was completed in June 2014 for $399 Million in cash.

Operations

Headquarters

The LiveTV headquarters was in one building in the Airport Commercial Park along South Babcock Street in Melbourne, Florida.Contact us.
LiveTV. Retrieved on June 9, 2013.Blake, Scott.
LiveTV to hire more people in Melbourne, Orlando
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Florida Today ''Florida Today'' is the major daily newspaper serving Brevard County, Florida. Al Neuharth of the Gannett corporation started the paper in 1966, and some of the things he did with this newspaper presaged what he would later do at USA Today. ...

''. January 30, 2008. Retrieved on January 19, 2010.Where we are
" LiveTV. Retrieved on June 9, 2013. In 2008 the company was headquartered in a total of of space in a group of five buildings in the Gateway Business Center in Melbourne. During that year the company announced plans to move to the Airport Commercial Park. In 2008 the company threatened to move its headquarters to

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

if it did not receive tax breaks. The City of Melbourne,

Brevard County Brevard County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county seat is located in ...

, and the State of Florida gave $164,000 in incentives, so the headquarters moved to a new facility in Melbourne. As of that year the Melbourne headquarters has engineering, finance, marketing and sales personnel.

Other facilities

In addition, LiveTV had a facility on the grounds of Orlando International Airport in Orlando. As of 2008 the facility has a hangar, office space, and a warehouse. Other offices include: *

Calgary, Alberta Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

* Fort Lauderdale, Florida *

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

* New York, New York *

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Products

Its main product was in aircraft seat-back satellite television service, XM Satellite Radio, and movie programming. The system also offers live flight trackers, for people to see where they are.

Satellite Television Providers

Depending on the region the airline operates in, different satellite television providers are utilized. *

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...

* SKY Brazil

Airlines Used LiveTV Products

Currently

The following list of airlines currently have the LiveTV System on their Aircraft. *

JetBlue Airways JetBlue Airways Corporation (stylized as jetBlue) is a major American low cost airline, and the seventh largest airline in North America by passengers carried. The airline is headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York C ...

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

WestJet WestJet Airlines Ltd. is a Canadian airline headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, near Calgary International Airport. It is the second-largest Canadian airline, behind Air Canada, operating an average of 777 flights and carrying more than 66,130 ...

* Azul Brazilian Airlines

Formerly

The following list of airlines have since removed the LiveTV System from their aircraft. * Frontier Airlines *

Virgin Australia Virgin Australia, the trading name of Virgin Australia Airlines Pty Ltd, is an Australian-based airline. It is the largest airline by fleet size to use the Virgin brand. It commenced services on 31 August 2000 as ''Virgin Blue'', with two ...

References

External links

LiveTV website
{{Thales Group Television companies of the United States Companies based in Brevard County, Florida Melbourne, Florida Aviation mass media 2014 mergers and acquisitions Thales Group divisions and subsidiaries __FORCETOC__