Nowadays, with inflight connectivity at the heart of every passenger experience discussion, the industry is fixated on a singular metric: megabits per second. With the entry of SpaceX's Starlink into the business aviation sector, the narrative has shifted toward a "speed race," where the winner is effectively determined by whoever can deliver the fastest throughput at cruising altitude.

しかし、マーケットが生の帯域幅という光る魅力を追いかける一方で、業界の長年の機内WiFiの老舗である Gogo Business Aviation は別の道を進んでいます。In a recent interview with AeroXplorer, Gogo's SVP Dave Falberg made it clear: Gogo isn't competing in a speed race.

むしろ、同社が競っているのは信頼性と統合性のレースです。

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Specialized vs. General

The most significant hurdle for any newcomer in BizAv is the sheer complexity of the landscape. Unlike residential internet or commercial airline fleets, business aviation serves a highly demanding clientele.

「Customers all over the world globally are very – especially at that end of the market, flying BBJs – very discerning. There's a high expectation around that. Absolutely in the Middle East we experience that as well,」Falberg commented. He added, 「I think that the [product] wrapped in GoGo's support ecosystem is a perfect mix to make sure that the customer expectation and the performance of the system is delivered in the way that they're expecting.」

実際、Gogo はこのニッチに特化したソリューションを25年間にわたって磨いてきました。While Starlink is viewed as a consumer-centric space company adapted to the aviation industry, Gogo sees itself as a company native to the aviation space, in essence.

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Falberg の目には、Starlink を選ぶことは「製品」を買うことであり、Gogo を選ぶことはエコシステムに参加することだと映っています。A standalone satellite segment provides data, but Gogo provides a suite of tools that integrate with the aircraft's internal systems.

「One of the reasons that customers come back to us is our flexibility … providing an experience which is not available when you have stand-alone segments on board the aircraft,」と彼は語りました。

The Wrong Metric?

Gogo's success isn't just measured by download speeds, but by the business logic built into the hardware. Along with enterprise-grade safeguards designed to minimize hacking and spoofing, Gogo's products enable a layered infrastructure to ensure a seamless passenger experience, even during a system malfunction.

実際、Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) と Low Earth Orbit (LEO) を組み合わせたハイブリッドソリューションを使う顧客にとっては、システムはユーザー体験にほとんど影響を与えずに両者を切り替えられます。

「In most circumstances, when you switch from LEO to GEO or GEO to LEO, you're not really going to notice any difference,」Falberg said. 「The only time that you might notice something within video conferencing is if your upload speeds might change slightly, so you might see a little bit of jitter or something as it transfers across, but we try and minimize that with the setup of audio.」

しかし、ダウンロードやアップロード速度にあまりにも固執する世界で、なぜこれが重要なのでしょうか。

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答えは容量にあります。

Falberg は、特にビジネス航空では、利用可能だからといって機体に最速のWiFiを装備する必要はないと主張します。He related the situation to his WiFi at home:

「 I have 500 megabits to my house. My kids are all on there surfing – they're all using their Xboxes, Playstations, whatever else. They barely use above 100 megabits per second. They don't need that much capacity to do it. The same applies when you're onboard an aircraft, when you're streaming video, or you're video conferencing; you're not necessarily going to be using the max capacity that's available on the aircraft.」

How Does Gogo Compete?

The "Starlink Speed Race" assumes that LEO satellites are the only answer. However, Gogo disagrees; they have adopted a requirement-first, technology-second philosophy.

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Gogo の経営陣は特定の製品を前面に出すのではなく、まず最終的な目的から考えます。If a customer flies exclusively in North America on a light jet, for example, a massive LEO antenna may be overkill. In that case, the drawback of additional drag may not outweigh the benefit of a higher internet speed, so Gogo's Air-to-Ground (ATG) or 5G network may be a better fit.

しかし、任務がグローバルで大容量を要する場合でも、Gogo は Galileo のような製品でそのニーズに応えられます。

技術にとらわれない姿勢を保つことで、Gogo は顧客が必要以上の費用を払ったり、機体に最適化されていないハードウェアを搭載したりすることを防げます。

また、Gogo はビジネスを行う上での人的要素に強みを見いだしています。ビジネス航空の世界では、サポートチケットを作成しなければならないというのはかなりの後退です。

会話の中で、Falberg はこれを支持し、Gogo の顧客基盤の受け止め方についてこう述べました：

「I think customers really appreciate that they can build relationships with our account management teams, with our support teams. When there is a problem, they're dealing with trained, certified engineers, and they know that within six hours, you can have someone onboard an aircraft, regardless of where you are. It's those types of things that really make a difference, and what we see is going to be an expectation for customers moving forward.」

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このレベルのサービスは、Gogo とその顧客基盤の間に生まれる高い信頼感を築き上げるものであり、生のWiFi速度だけでは代替できません。多くのフライト部門にとって、電話に人が出てハンガーに来てくれるという安心感は、例えば追加の59 mbps よりも価値があります。

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The Long Game

長期的には、Speed Race は収穫逓減の点に達するかもしれません。

すべての乗客が4Kビデオをストリーミングできるようになったら、次は何でしょうか。さらなる速度向上は乗客にとって目立たなくなり、販売の訴求点ではなくなります。

Gogo の賭けは、速度の新奇性が薄れたときに、信頼性と人間的つながりへの需要だけが残るだろうということです。