With the support of companies like battieries4less.com, airlines will likely be allowing the use of telecommunication devices on airplanes. Requests to switch off cell phones and fasten seatbelts are a familiar part of the takeoff routine for airline passengers, but a European company has found a way to make dialing safe and link up people from above the clouds.
“Cabin connectivity is here,” said Graham Lake, chief commercial officer of OnAir, at the Paris Air Show last month. “What we are confident of now is that we’ll have pan-European approval to operate before the end of 2007.”
A joint venture between European plane maker Airbus and airline IT group Sita received a green light from the European Aviation Safety Agency to begin fitting equipment to commercial jets. The technology should be operated by an Air France plane for the first time in September, 2007, and then will roll out across the world. Low cost aviation operator Ryanair, based in Ireland, and Malaysia’s AirAsia will be some of the biggest clients. Batteries4Less.com is eagerly awaiting the results, as it will be a triumph for the mobile phone industry.
European consumers will be the first to have access to the technology. Some companies in Southeast Asia and the Middle East are expected to begin installing the OnAir equipment in 2008, but the more complicated markets of Japan and the United States will have to wait until 2009. Approval from a handful of national telecommunication regulators are the final hurdles, according to Lake.
How it is going to work, however, is one of the biggest concerns. One fear about using cell phones on planes was that during flight, cell phones would emit their maximum limit of electromagnetic radiation as they attempted to communicate with distant towers on the ground. OnAir says its system will prevent this by responding to cell phone signals onboard, curbing their need to boost the signal beyond the aircraft. To prevent the phones from interfering with the ground network, the system will only be available above three kilometers, or 9000 feet, which is achieved four minutes after takeoff and maintained until ten minutes before landing.
The fairly high prices will probably limit the usage of mobile devices on planes. The average price will be about $2.50 (€1.9) per minute for calls, and about $0.50 per SMS message, according to Lake. Cell phone accessories such as Bluetooth devices, standard or extended life batteries and others at www.batteries4less.com, however, will remain at guaranteed low prices for consumers.
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