About AEC Skyline
AEC Skyline is an agile and adaptive company that offers tactical data and operational training services aimed at land, naval and air domains. Traditionally, the Dutch Ministry of Defence is one of AEC Skyline’s main customers. However, with their fast air, ISR support and critical data solutions they also provide support to the armed forces of allied nations such as the United States as well as to the defence & aerospace industry and domestic research institutes.
Patrick de Jong, Operations Manager at AEC Skyline explains: “the aerial services include close air support, electronic warfare, adversary training combined with target towing and remote sensing. AEC Skyline’s critical data solutions comprise systems integration, IT networking together with flexible, secure 4G/5G roaming services. Overall, we provide ‘bang for the buck’ by delivering professional, realistic and cost-effective support to operations, the military’s training scheme”.
Over the past 30 years, AEC Skyline has built a large network of relevant partners within the aerospace and military industries. This allows them to offer a wide range of fully integrated high-quality solutions. “Our team consists mostly of former military personnel. Therefore, this is a big part of our culture. We can operate independently as well as embedded within a team to support our customers, operationally or within an exercise schedule. Whether it is during planning or execution”, says De Jong.
In addition to its staff, AEC also has its own platforms: the Learjet 36 and L-39. The fact that AEC Skyline’s customer focus is second to none has created this mix of personnel, services and platforms. De Jong: “We are convinced that AEC Skyline is the number one partner in the Netherlands when it comes to supporting government, corporate clients with contract air and systems integration expertise”.
Meeting Frontier B.V.
In 2017, the collaboration between AEC Skyline and Frontier BV, Peplink’s European Distributor based in the Netherlands, began when AEC Skyline provided support to the Bold Quest exercise. The Bold Quest exercise series are held in the United States and elsewhere on a recurring basis. Bold Quest revolves around demonstrating the command-and-control interoperability of joint fires including sensor-to-shooter loops in a multinational operating environment.
In During this specific exercise series it became clear that the use of civil systems such as LTE / LTEA in combination with encryption systems offer added value for today’s operations. AEC Skyline needed a solution that was easy to setup, robust and reliable. It had to be able to be used for both mobile and static operations, securely connecting various locations to each other. After an extensive search De Jong found this in the Peplink solutions which led him to Frontier BV.
“Frontier BV contributes to the joint success by providing know-how in the field of equipment and software. In addition, the sales and technical team think along with the establishment of the network and the hardware and software solutions that go with it. What makes our cooperation unique is the fact that we both have a deep passion to provide our customers with the truly right solution and this contributes to our joint success. By exchanging ideas, knowledge and developing new use cases we make sure that our partnership is future proof. Frontier BV is AEC Skyline’s go to partner when it comes to Wide Area Network communications”, Says De Jong.
Peplink’s Solution
During operational training sessions in Germany and Aruba, AEC Skyline was struggling with signal strength. This caused delays in messaging and pushing live video streams. To maximize their services, it is extremely important to have low latency, so De Jong had to look for a fitting solution.
AEC Skyline found this solution in Peplink routers in combination with multi-vendor sim cards. Due to Peplink’s SpeedFusion technology it is possible to utilize different technologies to ensure stable connectivity.
De Jong explains: “as a result from our cooperation the implemented solution increased coverage and the internet speeds improved extensively. We used this comprehensive solution for the first time during a training event in Aruba with unmanned air vehicles being used to scan the coast with camera’s. Bear in mind that the footage that they record is being sent to the coastguard in both The Netherlands and Aruba.”
Because the results with Peplink were excellent, AEC Skyline also integrated Peplink’s solutions into its main, overarching operating environment.
“These MX 15 sensor devices process 8 Mbits per second, so a solid connection is very important and it worked perfectly. This is a perfect example of why we continue to work with Peplink “
Patrick de Jong, Operations Manager, AEC Skyline
