Faster Wi-Fi on planes is taking off. Profits aren't.

The long-awaited arrival of free, dependable Wi-Fi on planes will be a boon to fliers in the coming years. Investors, maybe not so much. Anyone who has tried to use in-flight Wi-Fi over the past two decades knows that, when available, the service is slow and frustrating. The historic market leader, Colorado-based Gogo, based its coverage on cell towers, which struggled to serve planes flying at high altitudes, leading demand to permanently undershoot forecasts. When Gogo started contracting satellite coverage for overseas trips, it appeared to pave the way for a revolution fueled by the ongoing boom in the satellite industry and the wider space economy. Yet massive cost overruns and the pandemic drove Gogo to sell its commercial-aviation unit in 2020 to Intelsat, a satellite company then undergoing bankruptcy. British peer OneWeb went bust the same year. The sorry saga underscores the uncertain path of investor returns in this promising yet capital-hungry industry. The potential is clear: Leased in-flight Wi-Fi capacity is forecast to increase 19-fold by 2031, according to Euroconsult, much of it in the underexploited "Ka-band." Story has more. <br/>