LEO rising
The hype would suggest LEO is the only game in connectivity town but the bigger picture offers a different perspective. Words by Rob Hodgetts
PEER UP into space and look around. Beautiful and thought-provoking, isn’t it? It is also home to nearly 20,000 communications satellites. And up there, as a tiny percentage of traffic buzzing about the bandwidths, perches a business aviation connectivity industry locked in an intense battle for supremacy.
“We’ve got a lot of customers who are GEO-centric. Everybody forgets that there is a lot of GEO investment around the satellites as well, they are getting smaller and more capable.”
It is a tale of orbits, of satellite providers and connectivity resellers, of regulations and blanks on the map, of speed vs experience and a new realm of hyper flexibility.
Most of those satellites are in low Earth orbit (LEO) between about 160km and 2,000km (100-1,240 miles) from the surface, lapping the planet every 90-120 minutes. About 60% of those satellites provide connectivity for the Starlink system. Elon Musk’s SpaceX corporation has more than 11,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, with more planned, in its bid to transform the industry. Its aim is, literally in the sense of time and space, to undercut the legacy operators relying on the much higher geostationary satellites (GEO) orbiting above a fixed point 35,786km (22,300 miles) from Earth. There is also a middle ground, known as middle Earth orbit (MEO) at about 8,000km above Earth. SES launched the last of its 13-satellite O3b mPOWER constellation in September 2026 with full service expected in 2027.
The attraction of the latest LEO solutions is the combination of low-latency, or the speed at which data travels because of the reduced distance, plus high throughput, or the volume of data passing through a point in time. That is increasingly appealing for video conferencing, gaming, real-time data and cloud-based applications.
If hype and bandwagons are to be believed, LEO solutions are the winner and Starlink is king.
“There is still a significant installed base under incumbents Iridium, Gogo and Viasat but Starlink completed 800 installations in 2025 alone which is unprecedented, especially since most were retrofits,” says Summer Staninski, senior analyst with aviation consulting services provider Valour Consultancy. “Its stellar performance, first-mover advantage and previously very low pricing has helped it grow significantly.”
But not so fast…
Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation has more than 650 LEO satellites, in part powering the Gogo Galileo connectivity solution. And Gogo offers a “white glove” service, including comprehensive support, which contrasts with Starlink’s approach, according to Staninski. Amazon Leo is also in development and could be ready to join the fray in 2028. Its access to cloud platform Amazon Web Services will be a key differentiator “These players have the ability to offer more customisable solutions with value-added services to differentiate from Starlink,” adds Staninski.
“Stellar performance, first-mover advantage and previously low price has helped Starlink grow…”
But there is another but. LEO solutions, while technically global, have regulatory gaps that mean they can’t legally be used in certain countries. This is Starlink’s Achilles heel: beneath the headlines it is not approved to operate in India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, much of North Africa and a host of other countries. OneWeb is also restricted from India and China meaning Gogo Galileo also suffers from black spots. Enter Spacesail, a Chinese state-backed LEO constellation with 200 active satellites and plans for up to 15,000. It could be interesting in territories where Western-aligned LEO networks have struggled to gain approvals. But on the flip side, Western users might baulk at a Chinese network.
“Spacesail is targeting customers in regions where Starlink and OneWeb face approval challenges, and we believe it’ll find success,” adds Staninski. “However, these markets are relatively small and the LEO ecosystem is still likely to be fragmented in terms of operational approval which makes it difficult to serve the VVIP and HoS markets that requires fully global access.”
This all brings GEO back into the picture and helps to explain why it is the legacy connectivity option for good reason. GEO systems operate on mature satellite and ground infrastructure, proven hardware and decades of certification and regulatory approval, including over countries averse to Western LEO networks. Because of the high altitude and orbit over a fixed point on Earth, each GEO satellite covers a huge area and provides a stable connection without the risk of constant handovers. In October, Gogo renewed a $15m government deal to provide GEO connectivity through its Plane Simple platform.
The key GEO satellite providers are Viasat, which operates a legacy network as well as three next-generation ViaSat-3 satellites covering the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA, and SES through its FlexExec solution. Sensing it needs to go further, in November 2025, Viasat announced a partnership with Canadian provider Telesat to harness its LEO constellation.
This multi-orbit realm is the new battleground for providers.
“We believe that the most important thing for business jet connectivity is to have consistency and reliability, which we deliver utilising our high-capacity GEO satellites,” says Claudio D’Amico, vice president, strategic market engagement, Viasat. “By bringing a LEO component to the mix, now we have full redundancy of the existing network and we’re able to improve the performance by intelligently routing the traffic to the best link.”
Gogo, both a partner and competitor of Viasat, also offers LEO and GEO options through Galileo and its Plane Simple system, respectively.
“There has been a lot of focus on LEO in the last few years and customers have been waiting for us to have a working product,” says Gogo CEO Chris Moore. “We have had many big wins with Galileo, and we continue to focus on generating a global portfolio of STCs and getting Galileo out there as we capture market share.”
Current State of the Market - IFC by Aircraft Type 2026
Bizliner and Large Cabin Jets
But Moore insists “GEO is not going away”. “We’ve got a lot of customers, especially the US Department of Defense, who are GEO-centric. Everybody forgets that there is a lot of GEO investment around the satellites as well, they are getting smaller and more capable,” he adds.
Gogo goes a step further with its dominance of the air-to-ground (ATG) market in North America and Canada. Connectivity is supplied to belly-mounted antenna on aircraft in flight through a network of 5G ground towers. Latency is minimised and the hardware is smaller and cheaper to purchase, install and operate. Fuel efficiency is also better because of reduced drag. The downsides are lack of coverage in remote regions or over water and “rain fade” where signals are disrupted by heavy rain, thick cloud and thunderstorms and other atmospheric conditions. But for users flying predominantly in the continental US and Canada, ATG is a solid option. However, for Gogo, there is a new kid on the block. Out of the ashes of SmartSky, its former rival in the space which folded in 2024, has risen Apcela. The data networks expert acquired the assets of SmartSky and is positioning itself as a serious rival to Gogo’s ATG monopoly.
Medium Jets
But the connectivity landscape is more nuanced that just LEO vs GEO vs ATG. Bandwidth is a factor when exploring options. Higher bandwidth means more data can be sent and received quickly. Most connectivity these days is either Ku- or Ka-band. Ku-band (12-18 GHz) is in the middle of the spectrum and is the reliable standard-bearer of connectivity. Ka-band (27-40 GHz) is the high-speed, high-capacity option suitable for the most modern data-heavy applications. The downside is it is highly susceptible to rain fade. Both can be used with either LEO or GEO solutions. But the days of pitting Ku- vs Ka-band are over. Both are more than adequate for most bizav connectivity needs. The question is really more about which orbit, which network and how well does the hardware move between them.
There is also the low-frequency L-band (1-2 GHz) which uses small, lightweight hardware, offers low to medium speeds but is immune to rain fade and is the standard option for cockpit safety. Iridium Certus is the market leader.
While the direction of travel for some providers is to offer multi-orbit capability, a growing trend for users, particularly on larger jets, is to adapt multiple systems on board to increase resilience and redundancy. Honeywell’s JetWave X product can switch between networks based on what has the best connectivity for the task in hand.
Light Jets
Article data credit: Valour Consultancy
Current State of the Market - Market Shares 2025
Network Operator Share of Total Installed IFC Systems on Business Aircraft 2025
“LEO-only is sufficient for most aircraft types and passengers so we anticipate a large majority of installations will be for LEO connectivity,” says Staninski.
“However, for VVIP, heads of state and other government passengers, multi-orbit may be essential to overcome coverage gaps. For now, this will be LEO-GEO but in the future we may see LEO-LEO setups. There is a strong value proposition from incumbents and service providers in stitching together these networks and providing a unified service to these high-value clients.”
On a more granular level, some providers such as Viasat are trying to shift the narrative from pure speed to overall experience. Consistency of service is key and the reason Viasat has invested heavily in its next-generation ViaSat-3 fleet to increase capacity and digitally focus it where demand is highest.
Service Provider Share of Total Installed IFC Systems on Business Aircraft 2025
“The expectation from users is that it's just going to work seamlessly when you're flying and that provides a great opportunity for the industry as a whole to grow the connectivity,” adds D’Amico.
“In the long term, to maintain that consistency and that reliability, you need to have that flexible capacity.”
Net Change in Installed Base 2026 - 2027 by Connectivity Technology
Space X launched the ViaSat-3 F3 satellite aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket in April 2026.
“We believe that the most important thing for business jet connectivity is to have consistency and reliability, which we deliver utilising our high-capacity GEO satellites,” says Claudio D’Amico, vice president, strategic market engagement, Viasat. “By bringing a LEO component to the mix, now we have full redundancy of the existing network and we’re able to improve the performance by intelligently routing the traffic to the best link.”
Gogo, both a partner and competitor of Viasat, also offers LEO and GEO options through Galileo and its Plane Simple system, respectively.
“There has been a lot of focus on LEO in the last few years and customers have been waiting for us to have a working product,” says Gogo CEO Chris Moore. “We have had many big wins with Galileo, and we continue to focus on generating a global portfolio of STCs and getting Galileo out there as we capture market share.”
Current State of the Market - IFC by Aircraft Type 2026
Bizliner and Large Cabin Jets
But Moore insists “GEO is not going away”. “We’ve got a lot of customers, especially the US Department of Defense, who are GEO-centric. Everybody forgets that there is a lot of GEO investment around the satellites as well, they are getting smaller and more capable,” he adds.
Gogo goes a step further with its dominance of the air-to-ground (ATG) market in North America and Canada. Connectivity is supplied to belly-mounted antenna on aircraft in flight through a network of 5G ground towers. Latency is minimised and the hardware is smaller and cheaper to purchase, install and operate. Fuel efficiency is also better because of reduced drag. The downsides are lack of coverage in remote regions or over water and “rain fade” where signals are disrupted by heavy rain, thick cloud and thunderstorms and other atmospheric conditions. But for users flying predominantly in the continental US and Canada, ATG is a solid option. However, for Gogo, there is a new kid on the block. Out of the ashes of SmartSky, its former rival in the space which folded in 2024, has risen Apcela. The data networks expert acquired the assets of SmartSky and is positioning itself as a serious rival to Gogo’s ATG monopoly.
Medium Jets
But the connectivity landscape is more nuanced that just LEO vs GEO vs ATG. Bandwidth is a factor when exploring options. Higher bandwidth means more data can be sent and received quickly. Most connectivity these days is either Ku- or Ka-band. Ku-band (12-18 GHz) is in the middle of the spectrum and is the reliable standard-bearer of connectivity. Ka-band (27-40 GHz) is the high-speed, high-capacity option suitable for the most modern data-heavy applications. The downside is it is highly susceptible to rain fade. Both can be used with either LEO or GEO solutions. But the days of pitting Ku- vs Ka-band are over. Both are more than adequate for most bizav connectivity needs. The question is really more about which orbit, which network and how well does the hardware move between them.
There is also the low-frequency L-band (1-2 GHz) which uses small, lightweight hardware, offers low to medium speeds but is immune to rain fade and is the standard option for cockpit safety. Iridium Certus is the market leader.
While the direction of travel for some providers is to offer multi-orbit capability, a growing trend for users, particularly on larger jets, is to adapt multiple systems on board to increase resilience and redundancy. Honeywell’s JetWave X product can switch between networks based on what has the best connectivity for the task in hand.
Light Jets
Article data credit: Valour Consultancy
Current State of the Market - Market Shares 2025
Network Operator Share of Total Installed IFC Systems on Business Aircraft 2025
“LEO-only is sufficient for most aircraft types and passengers so we anticipate a large majority of installations will be for LEO connectivity,” says Staninski.
“However, for VVIP, heads of state and other government passengers, multi-orbit may be essential to overcome coverage gaps. For now, this will be LEO-GEO but in the future we may see LEO-LEO setups. There is a strong value proposition from incumbents and service providers in stitching together these networks and providing a unified service to these high-value clients.”
On a more granular level, some providers such as Viasat are trying to shift the narrative from pure speed to overall experience. Consistency of service is key and the reason Viasat has invested heavily in its next-generation ViaSat-3 fleet to increase capacity and digitally focus it where demand is highest.
Service Provider Share of Total Installed IFC Systems on Business Aircraft 2025
“The expectation from users is that it's just going to work seamlessly when you're flying and that provides a great opportunity for the industry as a whole to grow the connectivity,” adds D’Amico.
“In the long term, to maintain that consistency and that reliability, you need to have that flexible capacity.”
Net Change in Installed Base 2026 - 2027 by Connectivity Technology
