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Apr. 3, 2010

For the past year now, Aircell has been the world's leading provider of WiFi Internet connectivity for major airlines, and continues to be.

As the winner of an exclusive FCC license more than four years ago, Aircell has built a revolutionary mobile broadband network for commercial and business aviation.

Two years ago, the Aircell Network and its inflight portal, GoGo, revolutionized the commercial airline passenger flight experience by delivering a robust WiFi experience at 38,000 feet.

Additionally, the Aircell Network provides major airlines with connectivity to operations and a path to enhanced cabin services such as video, audio, TV and more.

Aircell’s commercial airlines customers include Air Canada, AirTran Airways, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, U.S. Airways and Virgin America.

Business aviation customers include Cessna Aircraft, Falcon Jet, Embraer Aircraft, Gulfstream Aerospace, Hawker Beechcraft, Piaggio Aero Industries, Pilatus Aircraft, Avantair, Flexjet, Flight Options, NetJets and PlaneSense.

More than 2,200 GoGo-equipped flights take off each day, with that number continually climbing.

The percentage of its customers who connected to Aircell's network using mobile devices increased by about 53.6 percent in 2009, and Aircell expects this number to grow even more as wireless users become ever more reliant on mobile devices.

A similar feature set is available to business aircraft operators. Aircell has facilities in Broomfield, Colorado, and Itasca, Illinois. Aircell's vision is to give everyone the ability to stay in touch, in flight.

Its products are also offered by virtually every fixed- and rotor-wing airframe manufacturer in business aviation and installed aboard the world’s four largest fractional ownership fleets.

In June 2006, Aircell was awarded an exclusive FCC frequency license that gave the company the ability to build a revolutionary new mobile broadband network for commercial and business aviation in the U.S. Air-to-ground wireless connectivity presents challenges of large distance and speed differential between base station and aircraft.

Adaptations to 3G EV-DO technology are made to handle the delay and Doppler shifts seen in the air-to-ground environment. Extensive tests are needed to ensure stable connectivity and smooth handoffs across the country.

Test scenarios were developed to cover various delay, Doppler and handoff conditions. Trying to capture each of these scenarios using inflight testing is very costly and time consuming, says Aircell.

The company decided to work with a partner that would allow it to test various radio channel environments on aircrafts without ever leaving the ground.

After working unsuccessfully with a top competitor of EB’s in the wireless testing space, Aircell turned to EB for the company’s EB Propsim radio channel emulators and EB’s ASO software tool to create realistic scenarios of various flying conditions in Aircell’s own laboratory environment to test the inflight wireless connectivity.

One of the mean advantages of using EB’s testing solution is that customers are guaranteed the highest performance available in the market for channel emulation and 100 percent repeatability of test scenarios.

By using EB’s technology, Aircell can better define and emulate air communication links of its more than 2,200 flights a day and test the wireless connection on an aircraft in a laboratory with emulations based on a virtual link or recorded link database.

Additionally, it only has to create the radio channel environment once and re-play it in the laboratory in order to improve performance and functionality of the live wireless network and at various cruising altitudes or speeds.

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Source: The Aircell Network.