Aircell

Aircell is a private company started in 1991 developing broadband for both private and commercial aviation. Aircell is the only company in the United States authorized by the FCC and FAA to use cellular frequencies for inflight communications. Aircell successfully bid $31.7 million for a 3MHz air-to-ground spectrum in a FCC auction in June 2006. [ [http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2006/10/23/story4.html?b=1161576000%5E1363001 BizJournal] ]

Aircell holds over 20 patents relating to technology for airborne telecommunications. Formation, based in Moorestown, NJ, developed two critical hardware components of Aircell's Gogo Inflight Internet system: its Central Processor Unit (ACPU) and the custom built Cabin Wireless Access Point (CWAP). [ [http://www.embedded-computing.com/news/db/?9304 Embedded Computing Design] ]

History

The company states that the idea for Aircell began in a barbecue restaurant in Denison, Texas, where company founder Jimmy Ray first made sketches on a paper napkin for an affordable telephone system for airplanes. Jimmy Ray subsequently formed Aircell.

On August 1, 2007, American Airlines partnered with Aircell to offer broadband on American's flights. [ [http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/01/american-airlines-chooses-aircell-for-in-flight-wifi/ engadget Weblogs] ] On September 13, 2007, Virgin America partnered with Aircell to add broadband capabilities to their flights. [ [http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/13/aircell-set-to-hook-up-virgin-america-with-in-flight-broadband/ engadget Weblogs] ]

On January 22, 2008, American Airlines completed the first aircraft installation of the Aircell Internet broadband connection at American's Kansas City maintenance base. The airline plans to install and test the broadband technology in 2008 on all 15 of its Boeing 767-200 aircraft. [ [http://aircell.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=73 American Airline's First Installation of Aircell] ] The technology will provide customers an Internet connection, virtual private network (VPN) access and email capabilities.

On February 29, 2008, Aircell unveiled the product name as Gogo Inflight Internet.

On August 5th, 2008, Delta Airlines announced it was installing Aircell's Gogo Inflight system on all of its airplanes over the subsequent year. [ [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080805-delta-will-be-first-airline-to-offer-wifi-on-all-us-flights.html Timmer, John (2008) "Delta will be first airline to offer WiFi on all US flights"] ] Delta later decided to filter pornographic content on its flights after customer and employee responses. [ [http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2008/10/03/wifi.html Yamanouchi, Kelly (2008)"Delta to filter Wi-Fi sites"] ]

On August 20th, 2008, Aircell’s Gogo going went live on American Airlines. Aircell’s Gogo will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Aircell will charge $12.95 on flights more than three hours, which include American’s Boeing 767-200 flights. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access.

ee also

*OnAir
*Panasonic Avionics
*Row 44
*Connexion by Boeing

References

External links

* [http://www.aircell.com/ Aircell web site]
* [http://www.gogoinflight.com/ Gogo Inflight web site]