CPDLC and Iridium issues
 

Hello,

Been seeing some NOTAMs from NZZO, stating they aren't using CPDLC VIA Iridium at the moment. Messages are getting delayed, so you could get a "Climb FL390" hours later. NZ started it, and now Oakland Oceanic following suit. Some have reported that one message was delivered 23.5 hours later...

B4985/17 - USE OF CPDLC (DATALINK) VIA IRIDIUM SATCOM IS PROHIBITED WI NZZO
FIR. COMMUNICATION WI NZZO FIR IS TO BE VIA HF RDO ON THE APPROPRIATE
SP6 FREQ. OPERATORS USING IRIDIUM SATCOM MAY CONTINUE TO USE ADS-C
FOR POSITION REPORTING WI NZZO FIR. HF VOICE POSITION REPORTS ARE
NOT REQUIRED UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED. 08 OCT 21:56 2017 UNTIL 08 JAN 21:00
2018 ESTIMATED. CREATED: 08 OCT 21:56 2017

A4271/17 - FOR ACFT EQUIPPED WITH IRIDIUM SATCOM, USE OF CPDLC IS
PROHIBITED WI OAKLAND OCEANIC AIFSPACE. FLIGHT CREWS CAN LOGON
KZAK TO ALLOW THE USE OF ADS-C FOR POSITION REPORTING.
COMMUNICATION WITH KZAK MUST BE VIA HF; CPDLC IS NOT AUTHORIZED. IF
USING ADS-C POSITION REPORTING, HF VOICE POSITION REPORTS ARE NOT
REQUIRED UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED. 10 OCT 22:14 2017 UNTIL 31 DEC 23:59
2017. CREATED: 10 OCT 22:22 2017

Anyone else with information on this?

Hadn't seen this - thanks for posting.

my understanding is that there were 2 recent incidents which prompted investigation and discovered a fault with the iridium system. One in which a crew executed a climb instruction issued but not delivered to the same airframe on a previous flight, and a similar one where an instruction was recieved on the flight deck but unable to be executed and subsequently queried and investigated. Sorry i can't provide more detail - quite likely that other FIRs will follow suit until a fix is inplemented.

discussed here on pprune: http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/600...ml#post9924022