Gogo Announces Next Generation Ground Network for IFC in North America

[Avionics Magazine 09-28-2016] Gogo has announced it is developing its next generation ground-based technology to better serve the connectivity needs of business and commercial aviation in North America. According to the company, this technology will offer a ground-like performance, including the ability to stream videos, for business aviation aircraft, commercial regional jets and select narrow-body aircraft operating within the United States and Canada.

 

The new network will use unlicensed spectrum, a proprietary modem and a new beam-forming antenna to produce peak network speeds of more than 100 Mbps, according to Gogo. This next generation ground-based network for the aero market will use LTE technology and leverage Gogo’s existing first generation North American network and infrastructure of more than 250 towers. 

 

“Leveraging our first generation network is key to making this next generation network highly reliable and economical to deploy,” said Anand Chari, Gogo’s CTO.  “Gogo’s next generation network will also be backward-compatible with Gogo’s first generation network, which means an aircraft will be able to seamlessly switch between Gogo’s two networks similar to how a cellphone on the ground connects to the fastest available network.”