A network node of a terrestrial cellular system provides telecommunications service to a user equipment (UE) in an airborne aircraft. Navigation information transmitted from the aircraft is periodically acquired, including aircraft identity, position, altitude, and a time of determining aircraft position. A link is maintained between the network node and the UE by transmitting beam steered, Doppler shift compensated downlink signals, and by performing beam steered reception of uplink signals. Beam steering is directed toward the aircraft based on the navigation information. Doppler shift compensation is adapted to compensate for a Doppler shift such that the UE experiences a nominal carrier frequency when receiving transmissions from the antenna nodes. Handover from a first to a second coverage area includes using a same cell identifier and a same frequency allocation in the second coverage area as are used in the first.