Sprint and Aircell Partner to Provide High Speed Internet While in Flight

Aircell, a Chicago-area company specializing in airborne communications for commercial airlines, and Sprint have partnered to provide high speed internet to airline passengers. A new division of Aircell allows airline passengers to surf the web, e-mail and log into their office network while in flight at a cost similar to ground-based hot spots.

As each commercial airline (such as Virgin or American Airlines) uses Aircell’s service, a Sprint Sierra 5725 air card will be activated for airline staff to download operational and network data on the performance of the Aircell network while the plane is airborne. The Sierra air card also enables Aircell employees to download any software to the Aircell system while the aircraft is parked at the gate.

We secured this win over AT&T and Verizon because of our ability to satisfy Aircell’s stringent technical requirements and to accommodate its bandwidth-intensive corporate applications, procurement and logistics compatibility, and because of our plans to transition to WiMAX.