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Over 200 million people set to travel on WiFi-enabled flights in 2011

Dépèche transmise le 13 avril 2011 par Business Wire

Over 200 million people set to travel on WiFi-enabled flights in 2011

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MDS, an award-winning provider of enterprise customer experience management solutions for communications service providers, and Aircell, the world's leading provider of inflight connectivity, today announced the results achieved through their partnership for the Gogo® Inflight Internet Service during 2010 and forecasts for the year ahead. Aircell estimates that over 200 million passengers will board Gogo-equipped flights this year.

“Downtime is becoming less and less acceptable in today’s connected world, and Gogo Inflight Internet enables passengers to stay connected even in the air”

According to forecasts from market intelligence firm In-Stat, global Wi-Fi airplane deployments were predicted to reach a total of nearly 2,000* by the end of 2010. In August 2010, Aircell announced its 1,000^th aircraft installed with WiFi connectivity; as of today, Gogo is on 1,087 aircraft, representing over half of all predicted aircraft WiFi deployments and a significant increase since the launch of Gogo in 2008, when just 15 domestic aircraft were fitted with the solution.

Aircell’s Gogo Inflight Internet Service is supported by MDS’ Intelligent O/BSS Inflight Broadband Solution, which manages both Gogo subscriptions and session-based revenue to ensure the best possible in-cabin experience to all users of the service. Gogo is now available on more than 1/3 of the aircraft in the domestic fleets of major U.S. airlines, equating to more than 3,500 flights a day in the USA. Since the first deployments in 2008, more than 10 million internet sessions have been served on Gogo enabled flights.

“Downtime is becoming less and less acceptable in today’s connected world, and Gogo Inflight Internet enables passengers to stay connected even in the air,” commented Rama Prasad, CIO for Aircell. “MDS plays a critical, operational role in ensuring that the Gogo service is available and provides a great experience for our customers.”

“MDS is incredibly proud to continue to support such a revolutionary technology that has seen demand increase so much in the last year, surpassing the 1,000 aircraft milestone,” added Drew Rockwell, CEO of MDS. “Aircell has achieved this landmark by acknowledging that innovative connectivity services like this stand and fall on the basis of usable interfaces, transparent costs and billing processes. Working together, MDS was able to help the business get closer to this complex customer base and become more agile in the management of customer care and billing for its users.”

* In-Stat; Build It and They Will Come? The In-Flight Broadband Market, July 2010

About MDS

MDS is a global provider of award-winning enterprise customer experience management solutions for service providers. MDS enables customer-centric organizations to differentiate and grow by delivering process innovation, service efficiency and optimal business performance across the areas of customer experience and customer revenue management.

MDS specialise in providing software solutions for service providers to effectively serve their business customers, enabling the agility to get closer to the most complex customers in the management of customer care and billing. MDS enable this through a solutions portfolio that contains e-billing, e-care and customer management solutions that manage the complete customer experience from initial order, through account management and billing, without disrupting existing system assets.

Headquartered in the UK, MDS has offices in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Customers include Vodafone, BT, Telefónica O2, and The Carphone Warehouse. MDS is part of the Martin Dawes Technologies Group which also includes its sister division MDA, leaders in business process analytics solutions.

For more information please visit www.martindawessystems.com.

About Aircell

Aircell^® is the world’s leading provider of inflight connectivity. As the winner of an exclusive FCC frequency license in 2006, Aircell has built a revolutionary mobile broadband network for commercial and business aviation. In 2008, the Aircell Network and its inflight portal, Gogo^® revolutionized the commercial airline passenger flight experience by delivering a robust Internet experience at 30,000 feet. In addition, Aircell Network provides airlines with connectivity to operations and a path to enhanced cabin services such as video, audio, television and more. A similar feature set is available to Business aircraft operators. Aircell has more than 300 employees at facilities in Broomfield, Colorado, and Itasca, Illinois. Aircell’s vision is to give everyone the ability to stay in touch, in flight^®. For more information about Aircell, please visit www.aircell.com.

About Gogo

Gogo^®, powered by Aircell, turns a commercial airplane into a Wi-Fi hotspot with true inflight Internet access. Passengers with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, can surf the Web, check email, instant messaging, access a corporate VPN and more. For more information about Gogo, please visit www.gogoinflight.com. You can also follow ‘gogoInflight’ on Twitter (www.twitter.com/gogoinflight) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/gogoinflight).

© 2011 Aircell LLC. Aircell, Gogo and in touch, in flight are trademarks of Aircell or its affiliates. All rights reserved.