If you’re a frequent flier to New York from San Francisco or Los Angeles, or just like to jet down to Miami to get away from the bitter New York winter, then you’re one of the lucky people who will have in-flight broadband by this spring, according to Jack Blumenstein, president and CEO of Itasca, Ill.-based Aircell. The company is calling its in-flight broadband service gogo.
“For the first six months, there will more broadband-enabled flights out of San Francisco,” Blumenstein said when we met for coffee earlier today. Aircell’s first two airline customers, Virgin America (based in the Bay Area) and American Airlines, are said to be working around the clock to get their planes ready.
In the initial phase, 15 of American Airlines’ 767s will be broadband-enabled; it plans to eventually take that number to 500. Virgin, by comparison, is looking to wire up all of its planes; it wants to provide broadband access to every seat via its back-seat system. Virgin wants people without laptops to spend dollars on broadband, I guess.
Aircell is also in talks with other airlines, but Blumenstein refused to reveal their names. He did tell me what the service is going to cost: $12.95 for cross-country flights such as San Francisco to New York, and $9.95 for flights with durations of three hours or less. Airlines, with whom Aircell will share revenues, are hot and heavy about this service for two reasons: in-flight Broadband not only provides a way to boost margins, but is a great way to lure business passengers aware from other carriers.
Aircell is currently contemplating striking up corporate user agreements with companies like iPass, it also has plans to work with aggregators like T-Mobile and Boingo. And it’s developing special lower-tier plans for devices such as iPhones, as well as flat-rate plans for “frequent fliers.”
Gogo uses a ground-to-air system that allows small antennas on the planes to pick up signals being pumped out terrestrially. Aircell has 92 giant antennas spread across the country, most of which sit in the same antenna farms that are used by cellular carriers; they can pump data that can be picked up at 45,000 square feet on planes flying at 500 miles per hour in a 350-mile radius. Despite not being commercially available, the system is currently operational.
Aircell has a roughly 3 MHz slice of same spectrum that was occupied by the Airfone service, enough for the company to send signals at around 3 megabits per second. (Canada and Mexico are doing the same, which means the Gogo system will work across North America.) Using compression and on-board caching, Aircell’s Gogo customers will experience broadband speeds of 2 megabits per second, Blumenstein said. Having not seen or tested the system, I am not quite certain on how realistic a number that is.
The technology being used for radio transmissions is a customized version of Qualcomm’s EV-DO Rev A technology. Blumenstein said that they can migrate to Rev B or LTE if and when those higher-speed technologies become available. The base stations for the system come from ZTE Corp., the Chinese telecom hardware vendor that is desperately trying to make a name for itself in the U.S. market. Aircell is using technology developed by Meru Networks to ensure that the on-board systems don’t run into capacity issues and all passengers can connect with the on-board 802.11 routers.
Aircell expects to deploy about 500 antennas, enough to cover the entire country and support as many as 250,000 broadband users. “We think we have a cost advantage over satellite-based systems as we are using proven technologies that are already in deployment,” said Blumenstein.
Now let’s see if customers want to show up for this service.
“signals at around 3 megabits per second”: That’s 1.5 MHz in each direction, meaning a sum total of 3 Mbps. It’s a symmetric system, at least in design.
Glenn they are using compression and on board caching for a “better” experience. I think the 3 Mbps today will increase to 15 when Rev B comes around. And so on!
I think in flight access can be a great service, assuming that the airlines don’t “screw it up”. One concern that I already have is the pricing, or should I say price gouging that is being proposed. The airlines would serve themselves well if they did modest flat rate pricing that made sense as a percentage of overall flight cost.
Let me also add that in flight VOIP should be restricted, if allowed at all.
I’ll add a third reason airlines should want this: occupied passengers don’t bother the flight staff and make everyone happier.
That is, until the internet connection goes down.
Not one to back up PR spin, but not only are their network costs lower than competing Ku-Band satellite services, the gap will grow because there’s no Moore’s Law pushing down the price of leasing that satellite capacity. Also no equivalent upgrade path to Rev C or LTE with satcoms.
But there’s a place for each technology that can’t be ignored. Ku-Band will continue to do well with bizjets and European widebodies. L-Band satellite with SMS, which Qantas is deploying, and Iridium for ACARS transmissions to the cockpit.
@Curtis: I understand your desire to ban voice apps on a flight (no one wants to sit next to an incessant yakker). Nowadays, I don’t fly without bringing earplugs or noise-blocking headphones- even without VOIP there’s enough noise pollution on a flight to be annoying.
Yesterday Harris Corp and Voyant announced an aviation broadband solution. My understanding is that this technology (originally came from US Govt) and offers 10 times the performance of the closest competitor.
I don’t think that 3 Mbps is enough for an entire plane, even for a first generation. You have to figure on about 10 – 30 people sharing that bandwidth. Airlines are either going to need the EV-DO Rev B upgrade right away or go with a solution more like the Voyant/Harris aviation broadband thing, which according to a conference presentation earlier this week gives up to 35 Mbps to each plane.
I’m sorry for the errors.
Here is the link to the Voyant/Harris aviation broadband thing. Speeds up to 35Mbps were discussed at conference this week.
RevB will not increase the speed materially…Because they are limited to a channel size of 3MHz…
a) In the CDMA world RevA, each channel is 1.25MHz for 3.1mb/s
b) Assuming no guardbands, maximum throughput, per cell sector would be 6.2 mb/s with RevB.
c) Keep in mind, a cell sector is several hundred miles with several planes in site of the base station…So, the more people using the service, the lower the throughput. But, that would be a good problem for Aircell to have. 🙂
Thanks for the shout-out. We’re really proud of the work done on gogoinflight.com, as well as this revolutionary product that will make a difference to all of us who spend a decent amount of time flying the generally unfriendly and over-regulated skies.
Michael
http://www.newmediabuzz.com
Any updates on the Voyant technology for Aviation Broadband?
Glad to see this technology has finally taken off
I was just on a plane from LA to NYC and the guy next to me was a beta tester for the company. He used it the entire flight. Watched video from Youtube, used outlook over a VPN, everything. Seemed fast enough. Slingbox did not work as I think that may have been to much.
Can’t wait for this to be commercially available.
I’ve been waiting for this technology to kick-off. It makes you wonder if it’ll be possible on transatlantic flights in the future too.
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I am on my way back to San Jose after visiting my mom, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to try this new service since its inauguration. Service seems snappy, at least from what I’ve seen so far. They have asked that you not watch video or make VOIP calls. I’m guessing that’s more economics than anything else. But still, it’s great to have this option.
’ve been waiting for this technology to kick-off. It makes you wonder if it’ll be possible on transatlantic flights in the future too.
@ Chat – Yes, Someday i guess !