Please leave your mobile phone ON!
A British airline's going to be one of the first ever to allow people to use their mobiles while they're flying.
From next year they'll be allowed on BMI flights from Heathrow within Europe.
It'll cost more than a pound a minute on top of your usual mobile call rate.
Basically you would use your phone as normal - they will install a local network on board - like sitting next to a mast. You can use a blackberry and get email via your phone. Reason they're not allowed currently is because it interferes with communications when phones try to search for networks on ground if have one with you that won't happen. This is a trial and in planning stages - hope to bring in in 2006.
Here's a bit more info on it....
British company BMI Airlines and Portuguese carrier TAP are set to give inflight mobile phone and laptop e-mail services a trial run, the Swiss-based information technology firm OnAir said Tuesday.
OnAir, a joint venture of Geneva-based SITA Information Networking Computing and European giant Airbus, said the trials would be the first ever on commercial flights, after a series of in-house dummy runs.
The services are scheduled to be offered from late 2006.
OnAir said that by then it expected the technology, which is being developed with help from Siemens, to have a green light from regulators.
"These airlines are investing in the future and will have a definite edge on their competitors when it comes to bringing this technology to the market," said OnAir chief executive George Cooper, a former pilot.
"These are ideal partnerships for OnAir as our research findings indicate that in-flight use of mobile phones is the number one communications choice among airline passengers, particularly on short and medium haul flights."
BMI is set to test the service on an Airbus 320 flying from London's Heathrow airport to destinations within Britain and elsewhere in Europe, while the TAP trial is planned for an Airbus 321, also on European flights.
"We believe that business passengers flying within Europe will very much welcome this new capability," said TAP chief executive Fernando Pinto in a statement.
The new system, which relies on widely used GSM technology, aims to allow passengers to make calls, and send text messages and e-mails to people on the ground using their own mobiles and laptop wireless Internet access.
"We are sure that many travellers will welcome this expansion of their ability to keep in touch while in the air," said Cooper.
Airlines have provided onboard air-to-ground fixed telephones on some seats at a premium charge.
The move to virtually unhampered in-flight telephony would end the airliner's status as one of the last few havens from mobile telephones.
In a nod to the potential annoyance caused to passengers who want a quiet flight, OnAir said the trials will also guide the airlines on "usage patterns and some of the social issues in using mobile phones on aircraft."
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