Air France Trialling Mobile Calling from Airplanes
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Richard Baguley Published on December 26, 2007 Comment on this |
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26th Dec 07 – The days of airplane flights being a sanctuary from cell phone calls are coming to an end; European carrier Air France has just announced that they are trialling a new in-flight cell phone service on one of their planes.The new system (which is built by the Generva based company OnAir has already been installed on one of their Airbus A318 planes that flies within Europe. At present, the service allows users to send text messages and emails through a small GSM cellular transceiver within the plane itself that communicates with the cell phones. The data is then sent over a satellite connection to the normal phone system. The new system does not allow for calls at the moment, but that may be added as an option in the near future, claims Air France. The new service only works when the plane is above 10,000 feet, and texts and emails are charged at a similar rate to international roaming. It has been approved by the European Air Safety Adminsitration, the european equvalent of the FCC.
Air France is not publicizing the details of where the test plane will be flying, and won't be expanding the service beyon the test plane for the moment; they will be evaluating the new service and how people use it over the next six months. The announcement from Air France is available here (Google translation here). We are also unlikely to see this in the US any time soon; the system has not yet been submitted or approved by the FCC.
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