Terrestrial communications network suitable for providing air-to-ground connectivity

A wireless network communication node suitable for integration in a wireless communications network, comprising:

• an augmented base transceiver station (BTS), the augmented BTS including one or more transceivers;
• one or more upwardly oriented antennas communicatively coupled to the one or more transceivers, the one or more transceivers configured to transmit a downlink signal to one or more airborne communication devices via the one or more upwardly oriented antennas at a downlink frequency;
• and
• one or more power amplifiers configured to amplify the downlink signal such that the downlink signal emanating from the one or more upwardly oriented antennas has a selected power level at least larger than a minimum threshold of a receiver of an airborne communications device,
• the one or more transceivers further configured to receive an uplink signal from the one or more airborne communications devices via the one or more upwardly oriented antenna.

A method for providing air-to-ground connectivity on a terrestrial wireless communications network, comprising:

• transmitting one or more native downlink signals to one or more ground-based wireless communication devices at a native downlink frequency;
• receiving one or more uplink signals from the one or more ground-based wireless communications devices at a native uplink frequency;
• transmitting one or more air-to-ground downlink signals to one or more airborne communications devices via one or more upwardly directed antennas at the native downlink frequency;
• amplifying the one or more air-to-ground downlink signals such that the one or more air-to-ground downlink signals have a selected power level at least larger than a minimum threshold of a receiver of an airborne communications device;
• and
• receiving one or more uplink signals from the one or more airborne communications devices at a selected air-to-ground uplink frequency different from the native uplink frequency.