In a way, in-flight WiFi still seems like the future. It's the internet, in the air, while traveling at 30,000+ feet. Clearly, just having access isn't good enough, as a smattering of opponents have stepped into a segment long dominated by Gogo with snazzier, satellite-based alternatives. Over the past few years, ViaSat has stepped up in an effort to offer flyers something that Gogo's existing services won't:streaming video. While Gogo's air-to-ground network is great for latency, it struggles with bandwidth, as anyone on a crowded flight from JFK to SFO will likely attest. Today, Gogo has taken the wraps off of GTO (Ground to Orbit), described as a hybrid technology that will be "capable of delivering more than 60Mbps to the aircraft." For those keeping score, that's a 20-fold increase from where Gogo started just a few years ago.
We spoke to a company representative leading up to the reveal, who confirmed that GTO is a proprietary offering, and will lean on satellites for the downlink while using existing ground-based transceivers for the uplink. For users, that means that latency will remain low, uploads will remain sluggish, and downloads will improve dramatically. Gogo points out that precious little will need to change for airlines to take advantage; there's a new antenna, which is actually half as large as the existing one, but most everything else will remain the same. Virgin America will be the launch partner of the new service, which is expected to be available in the second half of 2014; we asked if any other airlines were onboard beyond that, but were left to make assumptions for ourselves.
Gogo will be utilizing a Ku antenna developed specifically for receive-only functionality. Most users won't be bothered by the limited uploads, and indeed, this enables Gogo to more easily implement and support video streaming services. The company did confess to us that likes of HBO Go won't be supported right away (it'll need to test the loads for a while), but that could (and should) change once the kinks are ironed out. Unfortunately, the air-to-ground portion of the equation means that the tech will only be useful on domestic flights within the United States. Oh, and as for pricing? We're told that the rates will remain steady for now, and in fact, they could go lower with GTO enabled. Presently, Gogo is forced to price out more and more users in order to preserve a reasonable experience for those willing to pony up, but if it's able to allow more folks on, it can do so with lowered prices.
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