Gogo To Bring 5G To North American Skies By 2021

Gogo, a leading provider of in-flight internet services for aviation, has announced that it’s going to build a 5G network for the aviation sector. This new air-to-ground network will be designed for use on business aviation aircraft, commercial regional jets, and smaller mainline jets that operate within the contiguous United States and Canada. Gogo expects this network to be available for commercial and business aviation in 2021.

“Gogo 5G is the next step in our technology evolution and is expected to deliver an unparalleled user experience, pairing high performance with low latency and network-wide redundancy,” said Gogo CEO Oakleigh Thorne.

This 5G network will be built on Gogo’s existing infrastructure of over 250 towers and will use unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4GHz range coupled with a proprietary modem and advanced beamforming technology. The company will continue to use its 3G and 4G networks throughout North America to provide backup to the 5G network as and when required.

Gogo will first deploy its 5G network on a handful of towers to test it out but the company isn’t saying when it will actually be able to do that. It only provides 2021 as the timeframe in which the 5G network will go live for both its business and commercial aviation customers which include airlines like Delta in the United States.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General