A new service being tested by in-flight Wi-Fi provider GoGo could give airlines the chance to offer connectivity on international flights.
Earlier this week, the US-based company revealed that it had signed deals with a number of carriers allowing it to trial new satellite technology called 2Ku. With low-profile antennas in place, the innovative approach doesn’t rely on the land-based towers currently being used as part of the company’s air-to-ground method.
This not only means that sturdy connectivity can be offered on non-domestic trips, internet speeds on the whole should be considerably higher than those provided by the service in place at the moment. The current system is capable of reaching 10Mbps but this is expected to increase to 70Mbps.
Plans are also in place to improve connection speeds further, with an eventual goal of 100Mbps. The company’s CEO, Michael Small, said that reaching this target could lead to changes in the way in which the service is priced.
According to smh.com.au, passengers currently pay $5 per hour, $16 per day or $60 per month for access to the in-flight hotspots. The 10Mb bandwidth, however, can only support a handful of devices.
Mr Small was quoted by chicagotribune.com as saying: “By the time we get to 100 megabytes per second it will be different. We’ll probably be trying to get as many people to use our service as possible, like other companies do.”
Air Canada and Japan Airlines have both agreed to test the new technology. With the system now in the FAA approval stage, GoGo is hoping to start rolling it out to carriers by the end of 2015.
