The era of the Airfone air-to-ground radiotelephone system comes to an end on December 31 when Aircell, the new owner of the Airfone network, plans to shut the service down. Aircell purchased the Airfone network from LiveTV earlier this year and will use the Airfone frequencies to expand and meet growing demand for its Gogo and Gogo Biz airborne broadband Internet services. The Airfone frequencies are adjacent to those used by the Gogo service.
The Airfone network lasted for a relatively long time, launching in the 1970s then becoming GTE Airfone. Verizon ended up with the Airfone business following a spectrum auction in 2006, then in 2008 LiveTV purchased Airfone. The Airfone network was pivotal in the 9/11 attacks, with many calls documented via the service on all four hijacked airliners. Oddly, in a modern age where many airliners and business aircraft have the ability to connect passengers to the Internet, few enable voice calls, although presumably passengers could use the Internet to send text messages and emails during an emergency.
More In Avionics
