ATG Draft Order Taken Off Circulation

The order was pulled from circulation “to facilitate further discussions with ourselves, other federal agencies and interested parties,” said an FCC official. The commission is working with various federal security agencies to ensure security protections will be a condition of its licensing process, the official said in a written statement on condition of anonymity. The FBI had no comment. Gogo was notified that the order would be temporarily pulled from circulation for a short period of time, a Gogo spokeswoman said.

The FBI asked ATG licensees to comply with rules, regulations or directives of any agency with jurisdiction, in a Jan. 15 ex parte notice. The agencies include the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration and the FCC, the FBI said. Licensees will need to comply with provisions of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, because “the commission concluded that CALEA applies to facilities based broadband Internet access providers and providers of interconnected voice over Internet protocol service,” the FBI said. Its letter is the culmination of a long process of interagency work on the issues raised by ATG service, an FCC official said. Some issues don’t fall under FCC jurisdiction, so the commission defers to security agencies on security issues, he said.

Gogo, a global aero-communications provider of in-flight Internet, will comply with the regulations, it said in a ex parte notice Tuesday (see 1502110015). Gogo’s current in-flight radios are CALEA-compliant, a Gogo spokesman emailed Wednesday. “Gogo is the only company that has proven experience in operating an air to ground network for aero communications in the U.S. and we don’t see any issues in navigating these waters.” The spokesman said the company has worked with government agencies and industry professionals “to assess and mitigate risks to a degree that all parties (including the FCC, FAA and FBI) involved are comfortable with.”

SmartSky Networks, which is working to form ATG service for private aircraft, is using military contracting firm Harris to design its radios to be CALEA-compliant, said former FCC chairman and current SmartSky Vice Chairman Reed Hundt. “That’s the way we have designed it from the beginning,” he said. “We want to be completely partnered with CALEA and all the appropriate security agencies. It’s completely obvious to us that it’s critical to national security to enable the national security agencies to have appropriate, lawful access to any web browsing that might be done from any private aircraft.”

Terrestrial wireless, or ATG, has been the “dominant mode” of in-flight Wi-Fi, Mark Dankberg, ViaSat chairman-CEO, said on an investor call Tuesday. The question used to be whether airlines offered in-flight Wi-Fi, he said, but now airlines are paying attention to Wi-Fi quality. ViaSat’s Exede satellite service is used for in-flight Wi-Fi. “Everyone pretty much took for granted that in-flight Wi-Fi was kind of slow independent of the price point,” Dankberg said. About 67 percent of passengers use in-flight Wi-Fi, “even when surveys say that connectivity is the single in-flight amenity most wanted by passengers,” he said.

Singling out ATG from other networks that connect to the Internet, including Ku- and Ka-band satellites, “doesn’t seem logical,” the Gogo spokesman said. ATG won’t differ from other networks, he said. “We take great comfort in the knowledge that there are almost 50 airlines around the world that offer or soon will offer high-speed Internet service to their passengers, including El Al, the most security conscious airline in the world.”