Gogo updates on 5G
June 25, 2021
By Chris Forrester
In-flight connectivity and aircraft broadband supplier Gogo Business Aviation has wrapped several key milestones as it continues to develop its 5G air-to-ground (ATG) network and aircraft onboard equipment. Gogo is already testing 5G antennas.
“Gogo 5G will be the fourth ATG nationwide network Gogo has designed and built,” said Dave Glenn, SVP/customer operations for Gogo. “Deploying this first ground site antenna and leveraging our unparalleled ATG experience over 28 years will enable us to validate our design for a smooth product and service launch.”
Gogo completed development of its 5G air card prototypes and recently completed coast-to-coast flight testing of its 5G belly-mounted antennas to validate their performance. Additionally, Gogo conducted a flight test and successfully established a connection between the 5G antennas on the aircraft and the 5G antennas on the ground tower.
“The tests we’ve conducted and successfully passed validate what we modeled when we initially announced we would build a 5G network,” says Mike Syverson, SVP/engineering for Gogo. “Through the testing we’ve done so far, we now know that Gogo 5G is going to be better than we originally thought it would be.”
“What we’ve done is validate that our systems can talk to one another,” Syverson continues. “The antennas can talk to the cell site, which in turn can talk to the data centre. There is a lot of software development to put those pieces together, and it’s all working very well.”
The Gogo 5G network is being designed for aircraft operating within the contiguous United States. Gogo, which has 349 patents in its portfolio, expects the nationwide 5G network to be available in the second half of 2022.
Currently, there are 2,000 business aircraft flying with Gogo’s AVANCE L5 or L3 system installed. As of March 31, 2021, Gogo reported 5,892 aircraft flying with its ATG systems onboard, and 4,614 aircraft with satellite connectivity installed.