Gogo plans to deploy a proprietary, hybrid Ground-to-Orbit architecture by the second half of next year that would combines existing satellite technologies with Gogo’s Air to Ground (ATG) cellular network. The technology will use satellite for receive only (transmission to the plane) and Gogo’s Air to Ground network for the return link (transmission to the ground). Gogo will be utilizing a Ku antenna developed specifically for receive only functionality.
“When we launched our in-flight Internet service five years ago, we were able to deliver 3.1 Mbps per aircraft through our Air to Ground network. About a year ago, we began rapidly deploying our next generation Air to Ground service that took peak speeds to 9.8 Mbps. GTO will now take peak speeds to more than 60 Mbps. That’s a 20-fold increase from where we started,” stated Gogo’s president and CEO, Michael Small.
Virgin America will be the launch partner of the new service, which is expected to be available in the second half of 2014.
