American Airlines has gone non-Gogo, striking a deal with Southern Californian communications company ViaSat to bring satellite-powered WiFi to 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircrafts by September of next year.
The deal comes in the wake of some fairly tense dealings between the airline and Gogo, whose traditional in-flight WiFi speeds (and near ubiquity) have been a source of frustration for passengers and carrier alike.
But while the two companies have been at odds (to say the least), Gogo will continue to provide service to a number of American’s fleet, including 134 Airbus planes, which have been outfitted with the WiFi provider’s 2Ku satellite service.
ViaSat says its service provides 12Mbps to each seat, speeds it promises will offering “at home” multimedia streaming options, as opposed to the regular old email checking pace currently available on most domestic flights. The new planes will utilize the company’s ViaSat-1 and ViaSat-2 technologies, with the even faster ViaSat-3 platform arriving in 2019.