Gogo Business Aviation has had its Avance L5 and L3 systems installed and flying on 2,000 business aircraft. Combined, the two systems have flown nearly 600,000 flights, consuming 262.61 terabytes of data. Gogo achieved these milestones in less than four years following the first Avance L5 installation in October 2017.

“The Avance L5 and L3 improved performance and functionality over our classic ATG systems continue to thrill our customers and drive demand,” says company president Sergio Aguirre. “The need for quality connectivity has never been more important than it is today, and we don't see that slowing down.”

The Gogo Avance L5 platform delivers a 4G experience to business aircraft of all types and sizes, from light jets to the largest global business jets, and will be able to take advantage of the new Gogo 5G network, scheduled to be launched in 2022. Avance L3, which launched in January 2018, provides an excellent user experience that is customisable across three configurations and comes in a lightweight, smaller form factor than the L5, making it an ideal solution for smaller aircraft including turboprops and light jets.

Avance L5 and L3 inflight connectivity systems today are certified on virtually every aircraft make and model from turboprops to large heavy iron ultra long range airframes, direct from the factory or in the aftermarket.

Gogo has completed several key milestones as it continues to develop its 5G air-to-ground (ATG) network and onboard equipment. The firm has installed the first two 5G antennas on a tower. With the antennas now installed, the company will conduct prototype testing of system performance.

“Gogo 5G will be the fourth ATG nationwide network Gogo has designed and built,” says Dave Glenn, senior VP of customer operations for Gogo. “Deploying this first ground site antenna and leveraging our unparalleled ATG experience over 28 years will enable us to validate our design for a smooth product and service launch.”

Gogo has completed development of its 5G air card prototypes and recently completed coast-to-coast flight testing of its 5G belly-mounted antennas to validate their performance. Additionally, Gogo has conducted a flight test and successfully established a connection between the 5G antennas on the aircraft and the 5G antennas on the ground tower.

“The tests we've conducted and successfully passed validate what we modelled when we initially announced we would build a 5G network,” states Mike Syverson, senior VP of engineering. “Through the testing we've done so far, we now know that Gogo 5G is going to be better than we originally thought it would be.”

Gogo has also successfully performed an end-to-end call using a 5G SIM card, from the onboard equipment to the cell site, through the data centre to the internet and back. “What we've done is validate that our systems can talk to one another,” Syverson continues. “The antennas can talk to the cell site, which in turn can talk to the data centre. There is a lot of software development to put those pieces together, and it's all working very well.”

The Gogo 5G network is being designed for aircraft operating within the contiguous United States. Gogo, which has 349 patents in its portfolio, expects the nationwide 5G network to be available in the second half of 2022.