Gogo Will Start Using 5G on Planes in 2021 to Deliver Better Than Crap Speeds
Gogo Flight — the company that uses your internet connectivity addiction to extort you out of insane amounts of money for crappy inflight Wi-Fi access — is planning to use 5G in planes by 2021.
Credit: Gogo Flight
The company claims the service is designed to be faster than the current Gogo Flight and work with smaller planes — including private planes. According to Gogo CEO Oakleigh Thorne this 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."
Great. This is the same they claim about their current network, but the reality is that passengers say Gogo sucks and airlines have sued Gogo over sucky speeds. Will this be different?
MORE: The Truth About 5G: What's Coming (and What's Not) in 2019
First, Gogo will put the 5G network equipment on the 250 towers distributed across the United States and Canada. It will be beamed using a custom modem on unlicensed 2.4GHz spectrum.
The company claims that 5G-equipped airplanes will also be able to connect to its existing 3G and 4G connections. It seems like more of the same: we can expect service cuts when switching from tower to tower, the main problem with the current system, and lousy speeds as the service gets saturated with more regional planes.
There’s no pricing available yet. Right now, Gogo charges some really insane amounts of money for very limited internet service. From $10 for 150MB in Emirates and $14 for an hour in British Airways to a $50 unlimited internet access pass on all Gogo-equipped flights.
It seems the world is in need of something truly innovative to get rid of these crappy inflight internet access services. When are we going to get global internet at any altitude? Maybe Elon Musk has the answer.
