Filed under: Cellphones

It looks like that proposed ban on in-flight calling has now passed its first major hurdle in Congress, with it snagging some much needed approval from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in a voice vote on Thursday. While the so-called “Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace” (or HANG UP, really) would make permanent the current ban on in-flight cellphone use, it’d also go one step further and put a stop to all in-flight voice communications, which its co-sponsors hope will prevent airlines from charging some passengers to use their phones while also charging others to sit in a phone-free section of the plane. Of course, the bill still has a long ways to go before it becomes law, but giving the recent polling on the matter, it would seem to have a better than decent chance of going all the way.

[Via Slashdot]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

That Air France in-flight calling trial is now well underway, and it looks like there’s still some kinks left to iron out. The New York Times hitched a ride on a recent flight featuring tests of the system, and found that things weren’t quite working up to snuff: voice quality was said to be like “talking to a small robot,” only six passengers could get a signal at a time, Blackberry email didn’t work, and calls placed from the ground to cell phones in the air went straight to voicemail. That’s a pretty long list for a system that’s been talked about for a couple years now — let’s hope OnAir manages to clear up some of these glitches before angry passengers revolt over not only having to listen to other people’s conversations, but also their screaming over bad connections.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Not even a week after hearing that Air France was forging ahead with an in-flight calling trial, the European Commission has now voiced its approval of using mobiles on planes in European airspace. After six months of deliberating, the decision was finally made to give airlines the choice of offering up services in order for guests to dial loved ones at 3,000-meters or more. The EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, went on to warn operators to “keep the cost of calls made on planes at a reasonable level,” and of course, not all is clear just yet. For starters, the European Aviation Safety Agency still needs to green-light the whole ordeal by approving any hardware that would be used, and we won’t be seeing any 3G action up high just yet. Still, at least one less hurdle stands in the way of you phoning home from over Europe (and simultaneously making enemies out of all your neighbors trying to get a few decent minutes of shuteye).

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation

Not even half a year after Air France enabled passengers on its single OnAir-equipped Airbus A318 to send / receive messages and e-mail, the airline has went live with the second phase of the in-flight experiment. As of this week, guests who find themselves aboard the aforesaid aircraft can make / receive calls on their mobile at 30,000 feet. Reportedly, a dozen simultaneous calls are possible “per picocell network, as well as unlimited text messages and e-mails,” and while pricing details weren’t disclosed, you can rest assured it won’t be a bargain. Nevertheless, the voice aspect of the trial is scheduled to carry on for three months, and we’re assuming the results (read: whether annoyed passengers start assaulting chronic yappers) will determine if it gets rolled out to more of the fleet or quietly buried.

[Via WiFi Net News]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation

Like it or not, a new era has dawned. More than a year later than anticipated, Emirates says that the world’s first authorized cellphone call was made by a passenger during an Airbus A340 flight between Dubai and Casablanca. Once the aircraft reached cruising altitude, passengers were permitted to make and receive both calls and text messages. Emirates plans to fit additional aircraft with the interference-blocking AeroMobile system later this year while adding BlackBerry and “other data services.” To keep the annoyance factor to a minimum, the flight crew requests passengers to silence their ringers and will shut off the in-flight service when appropriate. For example, during long-haul, red-eye flights or breaking celebrity scandals on TMZ… we hope.

[Thanks, Jonathan F and Andrew B.]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Although we’d always assumed that Ryanair would be the first to roll out Airbus’ OnAir in-flight calling system, it looks like Air France is going to take the prize — the airline is now rolling out Mobile On-Air 2.5G cell service on select international flights. Passengers on European-route Airbus A318s can now use their phones to send and receive texts, MMS, and email over the system when the new “no mobiles” light is switched off, and voice calling support will be rolled in in the second half of the year-long trial. Phones are used just like on the ground, with a picocell on board the aircraft bouncing signals off a satellite, and billing is handled by customer’s regular carrier, with rates “comparable” to regular international calling. All this, of course, while FAA twiddles its thumbs for the “foreseeable future.” Oh well — at least we’ve got in-flight WiFi to tide us over.

[Via The Unwired]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation

As the long-running fight for US in-flight calling (or the lack thereof) rages on, it seems that we’re finally getting a definitive answer on the matter — for the time being, of course. According to Telegraph Travel, Les Dorr, of the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), stated that “proposals to lift the ban on in-flight mobiles had caused such an outcry [that] they had been dropped.” Furthermore, it was noted that aviation authorities had “ruled out the use of mobile phones on planes for the foreseeable future.” Unfortunately, there was little exaggeration beyond that, but it seems that in-flight calling on US flights is on hiatus for the time being.

[Via Textually]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!