industry AIR Gogo Biz set to roll out its airborne 4G service early next year STREAMING S T O R Y B Y J O S E P H E . ( J E B ) I B U R N S I D E t wasn't that long ago that airborne internet connectivity was a novelty available only on long-haul airliners and a few large-cabin business jets. These days, thanks to steady demand and improving economies of scale, even regional jets and mid-size business aircraft easily can offer some form of internet connection to passengers; the basic technology even can be installed in a piston single. Whether employing a wide array of ground-based antennas or using multiple satellites, the two basic technologies providing airborne internet access share a common characteristic: If you want bandwidth similar to what's routinely available on the ground in most parts of the world, it will cost you. And the kind of bandwidth that have made YouTube and Netflix household names, the kind of bandwidth enabling all the magic-like tricks we've come to expect from our smartphones and tablets, simply may not be available, or at least not at a price an operator wants to pay. Bandwidth fast enough to stream high-definition 1080p video to portable devices is commonly known as 4G, the accepted standard for which specifies as much as 1 gigabit per second bandwidth for stationary or slow-moving users and 100 megabits per second 58 avionics news * december 2016