as nasdaq gogo industry technology aviation founded 1991 founder jimmy ray headquarters the gogo building chicago illinois united states area served worldwide key people michael j. small ceo norman smagley cfo products in flight entertainment in flight connectivity revenue us 233.5 million fy 2012 operating income us 32.5 million fy 2012 net income us 32.7 million fy 2012 total assets us 432.1 million fy 2012 total equity us 168.6 million fy 2011 number of employees 1200 divisions aircell website www.gogoair.com footnotes references 1 gogo inc. is a provider of in flight broadband internet service and other connectivity services for commercial and business aircraft headquartered in chicago illinois . 17 airlines partner with gogo to provide in flight wifi including british airways aer lingus iberia gol linhas aereas beijing capital aeromexico american airlines air canada alaska airlines delta air lines japan airlines jta united airlines hainan airlines virgin america vietnam airlines and virgin atlantic . gogo inc. is a holding company operating through its two subsidiaries gogo llc and aircell business aviation services llc . 2 according to gogo over 2 500 commercial aircraft and 6 600 business aircraft have been equipped with its onboard wi fi services . 3 the company is also the developer of 2ku the new in flight satellite solution wi fi technology . 4 contents 1 history 2 connectivity and performance 3 technologies 3.1 air to ground atg 3.2 atg 4 3.3 ku band satellite 3.3.1 gogo ground to orbit 3.3.2 2ku 3.4 products 4 participating airlines 5 surveillance support 6 criticism of business model 7 class action lawsuit 8 see also 9 references 10 external links history edit gogo began in 1991 in a barbecue restaurant in denison texas where company founder jimmy ray sketched his idea for an affordable telephone system for private airplanes on a paper napkin . john d. goeken of mci and airfone had already invented an automated air to ground telephone system in the 1970s and in 1989 founded in flight phone corporation as a competitor to gte airfone 5 serving many commercial airline passengers but not supplying general aviation customers . through a partnership with cellular providers gogo began as aircell providing analog based voice communications on private aircraft in north america . by the late 90s gogo had leveraged a satellite based system to offer voice communication on overseas flights . the next step was to devise a way to bring in air connectivity to a larger market . in 2006 gogo was awarded the u.s. federal communications commission s exclusive air to ground atg 3ghz broadband frequency license . in 2008 gogo made their debut on commercial aircraft . 6 in june 2011 the company changed its name from aircell to gogo as part of a re branding effort . prior to the re brand gogo s commercial air service was known as gogo inflight internet . in september 2014 aircell rebranded as gogo business aviation . 7 on june 20 2013 gogo announced that it has priced its initial public offering of 11 million shares of common stock at 17 per share . gogo started trading june 21 2013 on the nasdaq global select market under the ticker symbol gogo . 8 9 the price of its shares has fluctuated significantly since that time and the company has not had a profitable quarter in 2.5 years as a publicly traded stock . 10 however on november 16 2015 the share price was approximately the same as it was when opening on june 23 2013 . 11 the company has disclosed insider buying and selling activities to the securities exchange . according to the information disclosed by the securities and exchange commission in a form 4 filing the officer evp and gm bus . aviation of gogo inc. wade john had sold 10 000 shares worth of 220 000 in a transaction dated april 16 2015 . in this transaction 10 000 shares were sold at 22 per share . 12 in june 2015 the company moved its commercial headquarters to 111 n. canal st in downtown chicago . as of august 3 2016 gogo had partnerships with 17 major commercial airlines and is installed on nearly 2 500 commercial aircraft and over 6 800 business aircraft . the company has over 1 000 employees . in addition to its chicago headquarters gogo has facilities in broomfield co and various locations overseas . 13 connectivity and performance edit gogo provides continuous coverage with minimal interruptions in speed detected when passing from one cell tower signal to the next . gogo s connection speed is approximately 500 600 kibibits per second for individual users for downloads and 300 kibit s for uploads 14 total bandwidth for all users on the flight is approximately 3 mbit s. the gogo service is compatible with any device that has wi fi capability . external aircraft antenna connection onboard can be similar under optimal conditions to the experience at wi fi hotspots such as coffee shops and hotels in some but not all cases . users report connectivity issues when streaming video such youtube and hbo go . some users reported speedtest.net benchmarks above 3 mbit s while other users reported low results of 0.03 mbit s down and 0.27 up . in january 2015 david p. reed reported that gogo service exhibited multiple seconds of latency under load due to bufferbloat . 15 the user connects to the gogoinflight network and registers in the same way they would on the ground . the network becomes accessible as soon as electronic devices are approved for use after take off . 16 the service includes account management and allows purchasing service before the flight using the product web site . voip applications are prohibited by the terms of service . 17 technologies edit below are the technologies that gogo currently uses has developed or announced . air to ground atg edit gogo s atg network is a cellular meaning that there is a hand off when the aircraft moves between service areas radio network that has more than 200 towers in the continental u.s. alaska and canada . 18 the ground stations consist of original airfone air ground phone relay stations and newer locations using the 850 mhz atg band . 19 20 unlike terrestrial cell sites atg ground stations project a directional signal up into the air where airplanes are rather than downward where terrestrial users are . however the short wavelength used allows segmentation and other cellular technologies in the same way that terrestrial cellphone technology works . the aircraft communicates with the ground stations through an antenna installed on the underbelly of the fuselage . equipment in the aircraft s avionics bay converts between proprietary gogo protocols and standard wi fi which is distributed into the passenger cabin through multiple interior wireless access point nodes . 21 atg 4 edit gogo s atg 4 system is a backwards compatible improvement to the previous atg system . maximum total download bandwidth has increased from 3.1 mbit s to 9.8 mbit s. 22 atg 4 has been installed on at least 600 aircraft . 23 gogo can upgrade planes from atg to atg 4 overnight . atg 4 is powered by ev do rev b one of the only production applications of the b revision to ev do as part of the cdma2000 standard . 24 ku band satellite edit gogo has satellite agreements in place with ses for coverage over the u.s. atlantic ocean and europe and intelsat for coverage over portions of the atlantic and northern pacific oceans as well as routes over south america asia africa and australia . gogo has also signed an agreement with intelsat for ku band satellite capacity specifically for coverage in the atlantic and northern pacific oceans as well as routes over central and south america asia australia and parts of africa . gogo announced in may 2012 that it will partner with satellite equipment provider aerosat to bring a ku satellite solution to commercial airlines . a ku satellite solution will allow gogo to offer airlines connectivity services that extend beyond the united states including transoceanic routes and will serve the needs of some of their airline partners in the near term until inmarsat s global xpress ka band satellite becomes available . 25 26 27 gogo s ku band satellite technology is used for gogo s ground to orbit and 2ku . gogo ground to orbit edit gogo ground to orbit uses a ku band satellite antenna for the downlink to the plane and gogo s air to ground for uplink from the plane . ground to orbit will be in service over the united states and will have peak download speeds of 60 mbit s. virgin america will be the launch partner of the new service . 28 the ku band satellite antennas used for gto are manufactured by thinkom solutions . 29 2ku edit 2ku gogo s newest technology uses two ku band antennas one for download and the other for upload . gogo claims that 2ku will have peak speeds of 70 mbit s and has a low profile 17 cm 6.69 in tall radome . 30 like ground to orbit the ku band antennas are manufactured by thinkom solutions . 31 aeromexico is the first airline to commit to using 2ku . 32 gogo is determined to expand markets for its 2ku service . on november 13 2015 the company demonstrated 2ku for two dozen aviation and technology reporters aboard a boeing 737 . the system was able to stream high definition videos . 33 it was a small horde of data hungry journalists on board all trying to kill the system said jason rabinowitz manager of data research for routehappy quoted in bloomberg business . gogo claims that the service can provide speeds up to 70 megabits per second with 100mbit s to be available when satellite beaming techniques are perfected . actual speed is less impressive as discussed in a techtimes summary of some journalists findings during the november 13 2015 trials . speedtest rated it at 11.71 mbps downloads a 656 millisecond ping and uploads of 0.53 mbps on my first try said timothy j. seppala from engadget . he added that one drawback is the ping time which varies between 500 and 1000 milliseconds . ... the verge s chris welch meanwhile observed that upload speeds were almost nonexistent but stressed that casual internet users seldom need to upload anything larger than a picture or a vine video anyway . as for streaming it works brilliantly when used by only 18 people . 34 total bandwidth on the media flight was capped at 25 mbps . 35 a gogo press release in september 2015 stated that a japan airlines member jta was then the most recent company to order 2ku connectivity for its 737 800 aircraft . 36 more recently in a november 12 2015 press release 37 the company indicates that ... 8 airlines representing more than 550 aircraft have adopted the 2ku technology for fleet deployment or a trial of the service . more specifically in addition to aerom xico which already has 2ku equipped jets in the air virgin airlines and delta airlines have confirmed orders for 2ku service gogo ceo michael small told bloomberg business . more than 1 200 aircraft are committed to receiving 2ku . 38 products edit gogo platform gogo s in air platform gives travelers information services and entertainment while the airlines are able to display airline specific information . gogo text and talk gogo text enables passengers can send and receive text messages from their mobile phones . gogo talk lets passengers make and receive voice calls . in september 2014 t mobile us announced a new agreement with gogo to provide customers with free unlimited wifi text and multimedia messaging while on board a gogo wifi equipped flight from a u.s. based airline .