MDS and Aircell announce first annual ‘WiFi in the sky’ forecast as part of Gogo partnership

13 April 2011; Warrington, UK: MDS, an award-winning provider of enterprise customer experience management solutions for communications service providers, and Aircell, the world's leading provider of inflight connectivity, today announced the results achieved through their partnership for the Gogo® Inflight Internet Service during 2010 and forecasts for the year ahead. Aircell estimates that over 200 million passengers will board Gogo-equipped flights this year.

According to forecasts from market intelligence firm In-Stat, global Wi-Fi airplane deployments were predicted to reach a total of nearly 2,000* by the end of 2010. In August 2010, Aircell announced its 1,000th aircraft installed with WiFi connectivity; as of today, Gogo is on 1,087 aircraft, representing over half of all predicted aircraft WiFi deployments and a significant increase since the launch of Gogo in 2008, when just 15 domestic aircraft were fitted with the solution.

Aircell’s Gogo Inflight Internet Service is supported by MDS’ Intelligent O/BSS Inflight Broadband Solution, which manages both Gogo subscriptions and session-based revenue to ensure the best possible in-cabin experience to all users of the service. Gogo is now available on more than 1/3 of the aircraft in the domestic fleets of major U.S. airlines, equating to more than 3,500 flights a day in the USA. Since the first deployments in 2008, more than 10 million internet sessions have been served on Gogo enabled flights.

“Downtime is becoming less and less acceptable in today’s connected world, and Gogo Inflight Internet enables passengers to stay connected even in the air,” commented Rama Prasad, CIO for Aircell. “MDS plays a critical, operational role in ensuring that the Gogo service is available and provides a great experience for our customers.”

“MDS is incredibly proud to continue to support such a revolutionary technology that has seen demand increase so much in the last year, surpassing the 1,000 aircraft milestone,” added Drew Rockwell, CEO of MDS. “Aircell has achieved this landmark by acknowledging that innovative connectivity services like this stand and fall on the basis of usable interfaces, transparent costs and billing processes. Working together, MDS was able to help the business get closer to this complex customer base and become more agile in the management of customer care and billing for its users.”

* In-Stat; Build It and They Will Come? The In-Flight Broadband Market, July 2010