AT&T grounds its in-flight Wi-Fi plans

AT&T was ready to bring a huge leap to Wi-Fi connectivity on airplanes. The mobile operator had it all worked out. A ground-to-air signal would be transmitted to the plane using LTE spectrum already owned by the carrier, sent from AT&T owned cell towers. The idea was for AT&T to take the leading in-flight Wi-Fi provider title away from Gogo. While the latter also uses a ground-to-air signal, it has only 160 towers throughout North America, leading to extremely slow service.

But AT&T decided to go in a different decision. In a statement released on Monday, the nation's second largest carrier stated that its just announced purchase of Mexican carrier Iusacell, has led the company to put the kibosh on its plans to offer in-flight Wi-Fi service. AT&T announced the transaction on Saturday, and the acquisition is costing AT&T $2.5 billion.


Gogo, which escaped a close call, said that the next generation of in-flight Wi-Fi it is currently working on, will raise the data speed of the service from the current 10Mbps to 70Mbps, and will eventually hit a rate of 100Mbps.

source: PCWorld