One of the most well-attended sessions of APEX TECH 2025, the “Edge Caching & OTT Streaming: Redefining Latency, Quality, and Scalability” panel drew a packed room eager to explore how airlines can meet growing passenger expectations for seamless inflight streaming.
Industry experts—including leaders from IdeaNova, Panasonic Avionics, Netskrt Systems, Safran, and Axinom—discussed how edge caching and next-gen OTT infrastructure are unlocking faster content delivery, improved scalability, and higher quality entertainment in the air.
Ready to transform your inflight entertainment? Discover how edge caching and casting can unlock seamless, high-quality streaming while reducing costs and enhancing passenger satisfaction.
The Challenge: Limited Bandwidth, Rising Costs
Inflight streaming has long been constrained by high costs and bandwidth limitations imposed by satellite networks. Every additional passenger streaming doubles or triples bandwidth consumption and expenses, making traditional models unsustainable. To put this in perspective, according to Compare Internet.com a single HD stream can require 5-8 Mbps per viewer–meaning that even a fraction of passengers attempting to stream onboard can rapidly exhaust available bandwidth, leading to a frustrating experience for all.
Even with Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency satellite network, bandwidth is still limited, and simultaneous streaming from multiple passengers can overwhelm available capacity, leading to buffering and degraded performance. Ultimately, the available connectivity bandwidth for aircraft remains insufficient and prohibitively expensive, making widespread HD, 4K, and HDR streaming impractical.
Edge Caching—Transforming the Future of Streaming
Edge caching addresses the challenge of delivering content at scale without overwhelming bandwidth. It makes it possible for airlines to deliver OTT-grade experiences without sacrificing reliability–even at 35,000 feet.
Experts maintain that inflight caching remains critical—even on fully connected aircraft. Ground-based caching already benefits from superior networks, why not apply the same approach to the air? Given that connectivity can never be 100% guaranteed, onboard caching ensures that inflight connectivity remains resilient, scalable, and capable of delivering high-quality entertainment throughout the flight.
Inplay Edge—A Game-Changer for Airlines
IdeaNova’s Inplay Edge optimizes streaming through intelligent edge caching. It positions caching at the “edge” of the network, closer to the passenger. It allows the existing bandwidth to load content on the aircraft once—content is cached on the aircraft for subsequent users to access locally without costly internet connectivity.
Expanding the Inflight Streaming Horizon: Casting Innovations
Beyond edge caching, many industry leaders are embracing other advanced content distribution strategies to meet growing passenger demands—one of the most promising being casting.
While some industry players remain hesitant, Safran and IdeaNova champion casting technology to enhance inflight entertainment (IFE) by allowing passengers to stream content from their personal electronic devices (PEDs) directly to seatback screens, creating a more seamless and personalized experience. Products like IdeaNova’s Inplay Flow allow passengers to mirror and cast YouTube videos directly to their seatback IFE screens. Additionally, it enables passengers to conveniently share business documents and personal content–such as pictures and videos–between their PEDs and the seatback.
Take the next step
Curious how edge caching is revolutionizing inflight entertainment? If so, we’re here to help. Visit our website or contact us today for more information at info@ideanovatech.com on how edge caching solutions like Inplay Edge can provide reliable, cost-effective, high-quality inflight entertainment.
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