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Gogo in-flight internet has been renamed Intelsat
Consider the old name go-go-gone.
American Airlines offers satellite WiFi to its entire mainline fleet
If you're relying on American Airlines for a summer trip, there's a good chance you'll have internet access most of the way. The company has finished deploying satellite-based internet access to the fleet of 700-plus narrowbody aircraft that mainly handle its domestic routes. Depending on where you're going, you'll have either Gogo 2Ku or ViaSat Ka connections providing speedier, more consistent WiFi than the ground solutions of old. American deployed satellite broadband to its widebody aircraft roughly a year earlier.
Gogo will offer 5G in-flight internet in 2021
Gogo plans to launch in-flight 5G on business and commercial flights in 2021. According to an announcement made today, the 5G will be available in the contiguous US and Canada. "We expect to launch Gogo 5G at the same time as the terrestrial telecommunications companies are deploying the same generation of technology on the ground," said CEO Oakleigh Thorne.
Two airlines are bringing faster WiFi to their international flights
Two airlines have made moves to upgrade their WiFi offerings today. Cathay Pacific Group will provide GoGo's 2Ku satellite-based broadband technology starting in 2018 and Emirates has partnered with Thales to bring 50Mpbs connectivity to its Boeing 777X fleet in 2020.
JetBlue's Fly-Fi broadband is now free on all flights
JetBlue has finally made good on that promise to provide free WiFi on every flight. The airline announced today that every jet in its fleet is now equipped with JetBlue's Fly-Fi broadband, offering "gate-to-gate" high speed internet you can use even before the flight reaches cruising altitude.
American Airlines upgrading 500 jets to faster satellite WiFi
If you want faster WiFi when you fly and don't mind paying for it, American Airlines is upgrading its WiFi systems on over 500 domestic aircraft, according to Bloomberg. To get those speeds the carrier is dumping GoGo's terrestrial Ku-band internet service in favor of ViaSat. That company's satellite technology allows for faster surfing and streaming of services like Netflix and YouTube, something that's currently verboten with GoGo. The upgrades will start in 2017 and take up to two years to complete.
IBM and Gogo join forces to dodge in-flight turbulence
In what might seem like an unlikely partnership, IBM's Watson division and Gogo Inc. (the people who bring you in-flight WiFi) have joined up to make flying a little bit smoother for everyone. As the Wall Street Journal reports, IBM is leveraging its $2 billion purchase of The Weather Company and Gogo's internet connection to give airline pilots a heads up on turbulence.
American Airlines drops its lawsuit against Gogo
Last week, American Airlines filed a lawsuit against GoGo to get out of its contract with the in-flight internet provider. The airline found "materially" better service with a competing company, a situation that would force Gogo to provide a new proposal that American could ultimately reject if it found a better deal or service elsewhere. It looks like American and Gogo have found better ground, however -- Gogo just announced that American dismissed its lawsuit. It's not too surprising, as Gogo said last week it was in the process of preparing a competing proposal to match what American had found with rival provider ViaSat.
American Airlines knows Gogo's in-flight WiFi sucks
Sick of horrendously slow in-flight WiFi? It turns out you're not alone. American Airlines just filed suit against Gogo, the leading WiFi provider for most airlines, for not living up to its claims of matching or exceeding competitor speeds. Specifically, American Airlines discovered that Gogo rival ViaSat offered "materially" improved service over Gogo's older cell tower technology. As per terms of Gogo's contract, American Airlines is then allowed to terminate the agreement with Gogo and seek services elsewhere.
Gogo's next generation in-flight WiFi launches next year
Gogo's new 2Ku in-flight WiFi might not be as fast as your home internet connection, but it gets the job done -- and a lot faster than current in-flight connectivity. But how much will it cost? When will consumers get to use it? And of course, just how secure is the satellite internet service? For the answers to those questions and more, I sat down at a brief roundtable interview with CEO Michael Small and Vice President of Product Management Blane Boynton at the company's Chicago headquarters.
We pushed the in-flight WiFi of the future to its limit
It shouldn't have worked, but I streamed an episode of Last Week Tonight, a Twitch broadcast of Fallout 4, the premiere episode of Aziz Ansari's Master of None and Meow the Jewels all at once, all on airplane WiFi. In-flight WiFi giant Gogo demoed its next-gen version of mile-high connectivity, 2Ku, above the overcast November skies of Gary, Indiana, bragging 98 percent coverage around the world (the poles don't play nicely with airborne internet) at peak speeds of 70 Mbps. The reality is transfers much slower than that on a plane with roughly 25 journalists, business folks and Gogo staff all doing the same as me: trying to break the internet for about an hour.
Gogo gets the green light for its next-gen in-flight internet
In-flight internet comes with a kind of technological ambivalence -- the fact that it exists at all feels like a complete miracle, but at the same time it almost always totally sucks. Don't worry though, it's about to get better: Gogo, one of the largest providers of commercial in-flight internet, just got approval from the FAA to launch its next generation of mile-high internet. If testing goes well, you could be pulling down 70 Mbps on select flights later this year.
Gogo's internet TV service debuts on Brazilian airline's planes
It looks like Gogo's speedy 2Ku internet technology for international flights is ready for a wider launch. The company is outfitting all the planes in GOL's fleet -- a budget Brazilian airline -- with the technology, which promises 70 Mbps peak speeds. If 2Ku can truly deliver, passengers will have internet access with around 20 times the bandwidth of Gogo's first-gen air-to-ground internet. Since the tech can theoretically handle more load than other, notoriously slow in-flight connections, GOL is also installing Gogo's Vision video-on-demand service and Gogo TV on its planes. It's actually the first airline ever to order the company's Internet Protocol television (IPTV) product, which was designed to stream live TV shows to people's smartphones, tablets or laptops. Gogo will be done installing all these upgrades for GOL's passengers by mid-2016. It might also bring 2Ku to other airlines in the near future, seeing as it had always planned for a full-scale launch to happen this year.
Delta's in-flight WiFi is about to get a whole lot faster
If you've flown Delta recently (or most domestic airlines) and tried to use the onboard Gogo WiFi, you know that it's often a crapshoot. A combination of where you're flying over and the number of passengers attempting to use it leads to either a decent connection (yay!), one that's slow as a snail (ugh), or none at all ($#!%). Look, we need to remember that sending tweets at 35,000 feet is basically magic. But being able to stream even a low-res YouTube clip would really make flying a happier experience.
Gogo's in-flight WiFi uses fake web security to keep you off YouTube
It's easy to understand why Gogo would curb video streaming given the limited headroom on its current in-flight WiFi service. You don't want to miss important email just because someone in row 29 is watching the latest Epic Rap Battle, after all. However, the company's approach to keeping you off those forbidden sites is raising some major security concerns. Google's Adrienne Porter Felt recently noticed that Gogo is using fake google.com web security certificates to deter people from visiting YouTube. You can bypass any warnings from your browser, but the move theoretically lets Gogo decrypt and monitor your mid-air activity on any secure website, so long as it has the matching credentials.
AT&T is no longer developing a Gogo competitor
Don't count on AT&T to make faster in-flight internet, as the carrier has just announced that it's no longer working on a Gogo competitor. Ma Bell first revealed its plans to develop an air-to-ground network that has comparable speeds to LTE in April this year. Unfortunately, the company's execs have changed their minds after reviewing their investment portfolio and cutting next year's budget by 14 percent. Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt also said that one possible reason why the company decided to drop its in-flight WiFi plans is because most airlines are locked into long contracts with Gogo and other providers.
Surfing with GTO, the very promising future of Gogo in-flight WiFi
Let's face it: with few exceptions, in-flight WiFi still sucks. ViaSat's solution available on a few United and JetBlue planes is a step in the right direction, but even that product is inconsistent at times, if you're even lucky enough to end up on an equipped flight. The vast majority of in-flight internet is supplied by Gogo, utilizing an air-to-ground infrastructure that's similar to the cell phone networks that we all love to hate. But the company's next-generation solution, called GTO (Ground to Orbit), represents a tremendous improvement across the board.
In-flight WiFi to be available across Europe by 2017
In-flight internet is readily available across the US, but that type of connectivity is almost unheard of in Europe. Regulators are coming 'round to the idea, and seeing an untapped opportunity, Inmarsat has announced its grand plan to create an EU-wide network for getting air travelers online. The satellite company is partnering with 4G providers to build an air-to-ground network that'll handle the data traffic, in the same way Gogo (and soon AT&T) provides in-flight WiFi in the US. A newly built satellite called Europasat will also provide support from above, making sure the connection stays constant as a plane pairs with different cell towers along its path.
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