If the similitude is from a log-on, and you are probably right, why the first happened? The second have been associated with a possible flame-out and the start of the APU for a time long enough for the AES to come on line. But then, if the Satcom had been shut down sometimes after 17:07 (failed for any raison, or shut down to "fly in silence"?), what could have been the raison of the unit to go live again?
I understand from what happened later, that a "ping" was due around 08:07 (because the one hour timer). Was this "Log Control - Log-on Interrogation" (from the GES) canceled because there was no answer to other requests around 18:03? Or it is because someone tried to join the aircraft by the Satphone that THE "pings" happened?
Another consideration: from the graph below, one can see that the BTOs of R-Channel and T-Channel are, for each, very consistent, whatever unit is used:
And there is a ~5000 microseconds difference between them (4987 is the average of the BTO differences of each time the RX alternate between R and T along the timeline).
The BTO for T-Channel when the aircraft was in KL (9800 microseconds at 16:00:28) is too small for a signal could reach any point on a line below the satellite (at this time, it takes ~13560 microseconds for the light between KL and and a point at Earth surface below 3F1). Could the published BTOs for T-Channel be computed in another way that R-Channel?
OK, enough questions...