AT&T to Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi in Challenge to Gogo

AT&T the second-biggest US mobile-phone carrier, will introduce 4G LTE wireless Internet access to commercial flights, mounting a challenge to Wi-Fi provider Gogo.

With help from Honeywell International, AT&T will begin offering the service in the continental US as soon as late 2015 for in-flight Wi-Fi Internet connections and entertainment, as well as for cockpit communications, according to a statement.

AT&T would be the first provider of 4G LTE to planes, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics in Dedham, Massachusetts.

“The service could potentially be faster, since you don’t have to bounce up to a satellite,” he said. The service will use ground-based antennas aimed skyward at receivers on planes, AT&T Strategy Chief John Stankey said in a phone interview.

Pending final approval from regulators, AT&T will use some of the Wireless Communications Service, or WCS, spectrum it acquired in 2012 to transmit the LTE signal to the planes, Stankey said.