The Gogo 5G service will, once again, be delayed by issues with chip design. The company announced “a design error in a non-5G component of its chip, which was designed by a third-party subcontractor of its 5G solution provider.” Gogo 5G is now expected to go live in mid-2024, pending resolution of the chip redesign.
We are disappointed in this delay, but remain confident that Gogo 5G will deliver better performance and better value than competitive ATG or GEO satellite solutions.
– Sergio Aguirre, Gogo’s president and chief operating officer
This is the second major chip design issue for the company’s new air-to-ground network. In August 2022 the company announced similar issues discovered in “late stage testing” of the gear. That, too, triggered a year-long delay while the company resolved the design flaws and reworked the manufacturing process. That testing, however, did not uncover all the errors in the system.
As with the 2022 flaws, however, Gogo expects partners to continue developing 5G solutions and customers to continue buying supporting hardware. Aircraft owners and operators will be able to “quickly install the 5G box once the chip is available.”
Gogo also notes that the chip failure will not change its costs for the 5G network rollout, though it will reduce revenue by $7 million in 2023 and defer $13 million in expenses to 2024.
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