STC’s Under Development for Popular Dassault Biz Jet Models

Gogo Business Aviation, the American provider of in-flight broadband Internet and connectivity solutions for business aircraft, announced on 12 September 2023 that the company’s AVANCE L5 system with full Gogo 5G provisioning has been made available to Dassault Falcon Jet Service Center customers for installation on popular models of the French marque’s Falcon family of business jets.

Dassault currently supports upwards of two-thousand in-service Falcons, of which more than five-hundred are equipped with Gogo’s AVANCE L5 architecture, which facilitates easy upgrade to new technologies the likes of Gogo 5G.

Gogo vice-president of aftermarket sales Dave Salvador stated: “Gogo 5G was designed with our customers in mind to deliver high-throughput with low-latency, addressing the increased demand for data-heavy services and applications. Dassault’s investment in Gogo 5G provisions and STC development is a critical component in bringing this game-changing network technology to the market.”

Customers opting to upgrade to AVANCE L5 will realize immediate performance boost and be provisioned for Gogo 5G’s upcoming launch. During 5G provisioning, aircraft will be retrofitted with Gogo’s AVANCE L5 system and two belly-mounted multiband (MB13) antennas. The system will operate on the Gogo Biz 4G network until the AVANCE LX5 single box LRU—fully-integrated with Gogo 5G connectivity—is available for installation in 2024’s second or third quarter.

Dassault will secure full Gogo 5G and AVANCE LX5 Supplemental Type Certifications (STCs) upon the launch of 5G service.

Gogo is currently offering savings up to $50,000 to customers upgrading to or installing AVANCE L5 in preparation for AVANCE LX5 and Gogo 5G availability.

OneWeb, Gogo’s LEO satellite network provider, completed deployment of its 588-satellite LEO constellation at the end of March 2023. The London-based communications company expects its constellation to be operational and aero-ready in 2024’s first quarter, with Gogo’s global broadband service coming online prior to the end of 2024.

In February 2023, Gogo and its antenna provider, Hughes Network Systems, completed preliminary design review of a proprietary, electronically-steerable antenna (ESA) assembly, thereby bringing Gogo one step closer to realizing its vision of delivering an order-of-magnitude improvement in inflight connectivity for all sizes and manner of global business aircraft—many of which currently want for a viable broadband solution.

In May 2023, Gogo unveiled a second electronically-steered antenna (ESA) compatible with the company’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband network. The new antenna’s debut occasioned the introduction of Gogo’s Galileo product line.

Gogo Galileo now offers two fuselage-mounted antennas: the previously announced HDX model, the small size of which lends itself to installation on even light business aircraft models; and the newly-announced FDX antenna—which is designed to fit on larger aircraft and delvers best-in-class performance.

Gogo developed the HDX and FDX antennas in close collaboration with broadband equipment and services provider Hughes Network Systems, which will manufacture both models.

The new FDX antenna is a premier solution offering the selfsame base functions of its more compact HDX predecessor, while offering users faster data speeds, higher throughput, and lower latency than current geosynchronous (GEO) satellite systems are capable of delivering—thereby simultaneously supporting multiple unique VPN, interactive video, and gaming sessions aboard a given aircraft.

Upon Galileo’s launch, Gogo—by virtue of a hybrid LEO and 5G architecture enabled by the AVANCE platform’s unique multi-bearer capability—will offer the North American continent’s fastest and highest-capacity inflight connectivity products.

AVANCE L3 and L5 feature Gogo Vision 360, a complete IFEC architecture providing unlimited streaming of on-demand movies, television news and programming, leading digital magazine titles, and a state-of-the-art 3D moving map. Gogo Vision’s fixed monthly price eliminates the unpredictability and high costs characteristic of competitors’ in-flight streaming services

Gogo’s AVANCE L5 5G promises to afford air-travelers greater connectivity and data transfer rates across more devices than extant systems. Specifically, Gogo 5G is expected to deliver an average of approximately 25-megabytes-per-second (Mbps), with peak-speeds in the 75-80 Mbps range. To address the increasing demand for data-heavy interactive services the likes of video conferencing and gaming, the network has been designed to deliver high-throughput with low-latency.

The multi-bearer capability and software-centric design of Gogo’s AVANCE platform allows customers to future-proof their inflight connectivity investments, and offers upgrade paths to Gogo’s 5G and global Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-based networks.

Aircraft equipped with Gogo’s AVANCE L5 air-to-ground inflight Wi-Fi system may be upgraded straight-away to Gogo 5G.

Notwithstanding successive delays in the delivery of its 5G chip—a component essential to the actualization of the company’s ambitions—Gogo remains confident in its ability to bring to market the first 5G network conceived of and developed exclusively for business aviation. What’s more, Gogo expects the project to remain on budget; the delay, however, is anticipated to reduce the company’s 2023 revenues by approximately $7-million and defer some $13-million in operating and capital expenses from 2023 into 2024. 

FMI: www.gogoair.com