While US airlines have shunned the use of cell phones in
flight , mainly because their passengers are not too keen to let go off one last phone-free sanctuary – some
European and
preparing to offer the service as early as this summer . Regulators in
green light to the airlines , setting up a commom licensing arrangement . Air
hopes to be among the first ,beginning an experiment to determine whether
European travelers will appreciate the convenience or take offence
against having to sit beside a garrulous passenger .
But the service is
still facing a lot of problems .The technology, which allows cell phone users
to make and receive calls through an on board base station linked to a satellite , delivers a patchy quality that
restricts lengthy in-flight calls . Also
to be taken into account are the rather steep roaming charges of up to three
euros ($4.72) a minute .
On a recent Air France test flight between Paris and
Vienna , mobile calls made using this
technology generally allowed passengers to connect to ground phones after a couple of tries .
Calls made from the ground to the plane ,however, tended to
go directly to voice mail. To avoid interfering with the aircraftââ¬â„¢s equipment
,only a handful of passengers could get a signal at one time OnAir , the company that supplies the
technology , said that the number would soon double once technology improved .BlackBerry
users trying to download email found themselves against a blank wall .
Meanwhile ,Lufthansa,
second largest carrier , said that its passengers are not too keen on this facility as they would rather have a
quiet flight , especially those who have
to go directly for business meetings .
Source : Gulf News
