



Gogo has satellite agreements in place with SES (for coverage over the U.S., Atlantic Ocean, and Europe) and Intelsat (for coverage over portions of the Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans, as well as routes over South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia).
SOUTHWEST FREE TEXTING UPGRADE
Gogo can upgrade planes from ATG to ATG-4 overnight.ĪTG-4 is powered by EV-DO Rev B, one of the only production applications of the B-revision to EV-DO as part of the CDMA2000 standard. ATG-4 has been installed on at least 600 aircraft as of 2015.
SOUTHWEST FREE TEXTING DOWNLOAD
Maximum total download bandwidth has increased from 3.1 Mbit/s to 9.8 Mbit/s. Gogo's ATG-4 system is a backwards compatible improvement to the previous ATG system. Reed reported that Gogo service exhibited multiple seconds of latency under load, due to bufferbloat. Some users reported benchmarks above 3 Mbit/s, while other users reported low results of 0.03 Mbit/s down and 0.27 up. Total bandwidth for all users on the flight is approximately 3 Mbit/s. Gogo's connection speed is approximately 500–600 kilobits per second for individual users for downloads and 300 kbit/s for uploads. Gogo provides continuous coverage with minimal interruptions in speed, detected when passing from one cell tower signal to the next. Equipment in the aircraft's avionics bay converts between proprietary Gogo protocols and standard Wi-Fi, which is distributed into the passenger cabin through multiple interior wireless access point nodes. The aircraft communicates with the ground stations through an antenna installed on the underbelly of the fuselage. However, the short wavelength used allows segmentation and other cellular technologies in the same way that terrestrial cellphone technology works. Unlike terrestrial cell sites, ATG ground stations project a directional signal up into the air where airplanes are, rather than downward, where terrestrial users are. The ground stations consist of original Airfone air-ground phone relay stations and newer locations, using the 850 MHz ATG band. Gogo's air-to-ground (ATG) network is a cellular radio network (meaning that there is a hand-off when the aircraft moves between service areas) that has more than 200 towers in the continental U.S. Technologies įrom oldest to newest, below are the technologies that Gogo currently uses, has developed, or announced: In December 2020, the company announced that it had completed sale of its commercial aviation business to Intelsat for $400 million in cash and would focus exclusively on the business aviation market moving forward. In addition to its Chicago headquarters, Gogo had facilities in Broomfield, CO, and various locations overseas. As of August 3, 2016, Gogo's had partnerships with 17 major commercial airlines and was installed on nearly 2,500 commercial aircraft and over 6,800 business aircraft. In June 2015, the company moved its commercial headquarters to 111 North Canal Street in downtown Chicago. Gogo's shares started trading June 21, 2013, on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "GOGO". On June 20, 2013, Gogo announced that it priced its initial public offering of 11 million shares of common stock at $17 per share. In September 2014, Aircell rebranded as Gogo Business Aviation. Prior to the rebrand, Gogo's commercial air service was known as "Gogo Inflight Internet". In June 2011, the company changed its name from Aircell to Gogo as part of a rebranding effort. In 2008, Gogo made their debut on commercial aircraft. Federal Communications Commission's exclusive Air-To-Ground (ATG) 3 GHz broadband frequency license. The next step was to devise a way to bring in-air connectivity to a larger market. By the late 1990s, Gogo had leveraged a satellite-based system to offer voice communication on overseas flights. Through a partnership with cellular providers, Gogo began as Aircell, providing analog-based voice communications on private aircraft in North America. Goeken of MCI and Airfone had already invented an automated air-to-ground telephone system in the 1970s, and in 1989, he founded In-Flight Phone Corporation as a competitor to GTE Airfone, serving many commercial airline passengers, but not supplying general aviation customers. Gogo began in 1991 in a barbecue restaurant in Denison, Texas, where company founder Jimmy Ray sketched his idea for an affordable telephone system for private airplanes on a paper napkin.
