The chip needed for Gogo's planned 5G service recently passed a critical design review and is now in fabrication with delivery expected mid year.

“The critical design review was an important process and milestone before entering into the manufacturing cycle,” says senior vice president of engineering Mike Syverson. “Given the challenges that our supplier experienced in 2022, we felt that passing this amount of review would give us the confidence necessary to deliver 5G in 2023.”

Gogo Business Aviation's 5G service is expected to launch commercially in the fourth quarter of 2023. Gogo 5G is expected to provide ~25 Mbps on average, with peak speeds in the 75-80 Mbps range. It has been designed to deliver high throughput with very low latency to address the increasing demand for data-heavy interactive services like video conferencing, live TV and gaming.

Gogo's Avance platform, with its multi-bearer capability and software-centric design, allows customers to future-proof their inflight connectivity investments, with easy upgrade paths to both Gogo 5G and Gogo's global Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-based product in the future.

The first-article supplemental type certification (STC) for the 5G belly-mounted MB13 antennas and the X3 (5G) LRU have been completed. That STC will be amended once the 5G chip becomes available.

Gogo is working closely with each of the business aviation original equipment manufacturers and several authorised Gogo dealers to develop additional STCs that will cover more than 30 aircraft models in the aftermarket or from the factory.

Customers who want Gogo 5G service can install the Avance L5 system today with full 5G provisions and operate on Gogo's 4G network until the X3 LRU is available. Once the X3 is ready, it can be installed quickly and 5G service can begin immediately, saving downtime and expenses. Gogo is offering significant incentives to anyone who installs the 5G provisional kit with the Avance L5.

In October, 2022 Gogo completed its 5G nationwide network and plans to expand 5G into Canada in 2023.