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SuperGIG™ Connectivity: Building Airport Resilience Against Outages and Infrastructure Failures
At a Glance
One of the world’s busiest airports faced a critical vulnerability: a single outage could take down its fully cloud-based operations center.
A real-world data-center failure exposed the risk — leaving the airport blind with no phones, cameras, or aircraft visibility.
The airport partnered with Comprehensive Communication Services and IP Access International to build an isolated emergency network powered by SuperGIG™ and Smart Blending Technology.
The solution blends LTE, 5G, and multi-orbit satellite connectivity to maintain operations during cyber events, fiber cuts, and system failures.
Portable Go-Kits, a Mobile Command Post, and future mesh connectivity will ensure continuity from the command center to the field.
Results were immediate: stabilized drone video feeds, uninterrupted cloud access, and a hardened operational environment that stays online in any scenario.
Keeping the Heart of the Airport Online: How One Major Hub Built True Connectivity Resilience with IP Access International
In aviation, seconds matter. At one of the world’s busiest airports, a single minute of downtime can trigger millions in operational and economic losses. But beyond financial impact, the risks run deeper — flight coordination stalls, emergency communications freeze, maintenance teams lose visibility, and the entire ecosystem that keeps travelers moving is pushed into chaos.
The airport’s Integrated Operations Center (IOC) is the heartbeat of it all. It’s where teams oversee flight operations, IT, customer service, maintenance coordination, TSA collaboration, and emergency response. And as technology evolved, so did the IOC — now fully cloud-based, including its phone systems.
But modernization introduced a hidden vulnerability:
Without physical backup lines or redundant communication paths, a single network outage could take the entire airport offline.
And one day, it did.
The Challenge: When “It Can’t Go Down” Goes Down
Past disruptions — from cyber events to construction-related fiber cuts — had hinted at the fragility of a cloud-dependent operation. In those moments, the airport leaned on temporary workarounds like USB hotspots. They kept things afloat, but they were never a true continuity plan.
Then came the turning point.
During a routine tabletop exercise, a confident engineer stated the network “could never go down.”
Less than 24 hours later, it did.
A sudden data-center outage completely severed the IOC’s connection to phones, cameras, cloud systems, and aircraft visibility. For several hours, the airport’s virtual tower operated blind. Staff relocated, communicating through personal cell phones and ad-hoc hotspots — not a sustainable method for a major international hub responsible for safety, emergency response, and aircraft coordination.
That outage became the wake-up call:
The airport needed an independent, isolated, always-available network that could withstand anything.
The Solution: A Fully Isolated, Multi-Layered Emergency Network
The airport partnered with Comprehensive Communication Services and IP Access International to design a dedicated backup communications architecture built on Smart Blending Technology — the same engine that powers IP Access’ SuperGIG™ multi-network solution.
The result was a “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” network that:
Operates fully independent of the airport’s core infrastructure
Activates instantly during an outage
Seamlessly blends LTE, 5G, and satellite for uninterrupted connectivity
Maintains access to mission-critical cloud applications even during catastrophic failures
To expand resilience across its operational footprint, the airport also integrated:
• Portable Go-Kits for field operations and evacuations
Allowing teams to establish secure connectivity from anywhere, on demand.
• Multi-orbit LEO and GEO satellite backhaul via SuperGIG™
Providing unmatched redundancy through OneWeb, GEO, and future Amazon Kuiper capability.
• A Mobile Command Post (MCP)
Functioning as a live testbed for blended connectivity — combining satellite, cellular, and private 5G for command-and-control mobility.
Future plans include creating a redundant mesh of gateway systems, satellite terminals, and remotely deployable assets. This ensures the IOC, MCP, drone teams, and emergency personnel all share one highly available communications lifeline — even during a total fiber or data-center outage.
The Impact: Immediate Improvements, Mission-Critical Stability
Results were visible right away.
The airport’s drone team — previously unable to maintain stable video streams over traditional hotspots — saw a complete transformation.
Live video no longer drops. Dead zones have disappeared. Critical feeds stay online.
Across the IOC, the new emergency network now acts as a resilient backbone capable of sustaining operations during:
Cyber incidents
Localized outages
Regional disasters
Fiber cuts
Power disruptions
Cloud service failures
The airport’s leadership summed it up best:
“We’re the heart of the airport — if we go down, the entire operation feels it.”
— Emergency Management Team
Looking Ahead: Hardening for the Future of Aviation
As the airport continues modernizing, redundancy and independence remain the guiding principles. IP Access International is supporting the next phase of the strategy, bringing additional multi-orbit satellite capabilities through its partnership with Amazon Project Kuiper.
The goal is simple — but essential:
A fully hardened communications environment capable of staying online no matter what happens to terrestrial infrastructure.
For one of the busiest travel gateways in the world, resiliency isn’t a luxury.
It’s a mandate.
And with SuperGIG™ and Smart Blending Technology, IP Access International is redefining what it means to be always connected in mission-critical aviation environments.
