Alaska to migrate mobility business to T-Mobile, explore new 5G use cases
Alaska Airlines and T-Mobile have announced a wide-ranging partnership that installs T-Mobile as the preferred wireless provider to the airline. As part of the new agreement, Alaska will migrate the majority of its mobility business to T-Mobile.
“With air travel returning to normal, Alaska is looking to take advantage of the high-bandwidth, low latency capabilities of 5G to optimize every aspect of the customer experience — from ticketing to check-in, on-time departures and arrivals, baggage tracking and much more,” said the companies in a statement.
T-Mobile said Alaska Airlines will experiment with emerging 5G services like Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) and private networks to help improve efficiency and traveler experience.
“Leveraging over-the-wing, under-the-wing, and gate applications through MEC could enable airlines to provide ground and flight crews with the information they need to speed aircraft turnaround times, resolve gate issues and streamline operations to provide an even better passenger experience,” said the companies.
Alaska uses Gogo to provide satellite-based in-flight Internet service for its customers. Alaska said that Gogo’s service is available on more than 70% of its fleet. Neither Alaska nor T-Mobile indicated if this new partnership would affect in-flight services in the future.
5G and air travel
Gogo is currently testing Air to Ground (ATG) 5G service, which it plans to make available to aircraft operating within the contiguous United States in the second half of 2022. Gogo has partnered with Airspan on development of the software and network elements. Airspan specifically designed ATG beam profiles for its massive MIMO antennas that support link ranges greater than 186 miles (ca. 299 km) and account for the Doppler effect at speeds greater than 750 miles per hour (ca. 1,207 km/h).
In other 5G air travel news, in July AT&T and Boingo announced an expansion of their partnership to bring AT&T’s “5G+” mmWave service to U.S. airports. AT&T turned on 5G+ at Tampa International Airport in January, with plans to expand to seven U.S. airports in 2021 and 25 by the end of 2022. Targeted airports include New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports, as well as Chicago O’Hare International and Midway International airports, Dallas Love Field Airport, Los Angeles Airport and Denver International Airport.
AT&T also recently struck a deal with Apple and Delta Air Lines to equip Delta’s more than 19,000 flight attendants with 5G-capable iPhones. The companies said the widespread use of 5G across Delta’s workforce “could mean unleashing the potential of augmented reality to shape the future of air travel and the passenger experience,” offering up examples such as the ability to more quickly and accurately check in-cabin inventory using Augmented Reality (AR), or immersive training using AR.
