The European Union announced a plan to allow mobile phone calls, texts and e-mails on flights.

Using your mobile phone on a plane? Not quite. The AP reports that this new midair service will be available for some European carriers using GSM technology, though German airline Lufthansa has opted out. Instead, the latter intends to resume its in-flight Internet service that they had offered from 2004-2006. Its spokesperson, Jan Baerwalde, claimed that surveys show most of its customers are against it. “People don’t want to be disturbed,” said Baerwalde.

How would mobile phones on a plane work? It’ll be made possible via onboard base stations, where once the plane has reached 10,000 feet, mobile phones may be turned on. Details like pricing has yet to be straightened out which might stall the proliferation of the service on all major carriers.

“In-flight mobile phone services can be a very interesting new service especially for those business travelers who need to be ready to communicate wherever they are,” said Viviane Reding, the EU’s telecommunications commissioner. “However, if consumers receive shock phone bills, the service will not take off.”

Then there’s the worry of phone etiquette, which the EU also addressed. “Almost everybody will want to use this service. We hope that also some people will still use the aircraft as a moment of tranquility and not disturb other passengers,” EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said.

Air France-KLM doesn’t have Lufthansa’s reservations; they’ve already launched a trial of in-flight mobile phone services on selected European routes. It helps that the EU is making it easy for airlines to implement the service – they only need one license that will apply across all 27 EU nations. Of course, the equipment installed will need approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency to ensure the onboard cellular network will not cause havoc with the other in-flight systems.

The new service will not be ‘always on’, being unavailable at liftoff, landing and during turbulence. The captain and crew of the plane can determine when to shut down the system, one that won’t be linked to ground-based cell stations to avoid security breaches. “It doesn’t mean you can leave your mobile phones switched on now during the flight, we have to make that absolutely clear,” Selmayr said. “First wait what your airline tells you when you board the plane. Until further notice the usual reminders to switch off your mobile phone on the aircraft will remain in place.”

OnAir, a unit of planemaker Airbus, will be behind most of the technology being rolled out for the planned airline mobile phone support.

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Entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 3:43 pm under Cell phones, Technology.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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