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In-Flight VOIP Coming Soon
hdtv writes "U.S. airline customers are likely to be thrilled with an opportunity to sit next to someone constantly chatting on the phone. Information Week magazine is reporting that government auction is opening a way for telecoms to introduce voice-over-IP links on in-flight communication systems." From the article: "Airfone already offers phone service on many flights, but its high cost has limited its use. JetBlue has declined to say what its LiveTV LCC unit would do with a winning frequency. Although many frequent flyers and airline attendants favor a ban on the phone chatter, Connexion by Boeing, whose Internet service is already offered on nearly 200 international flights a day, notes that there have been no complaints of in-cabin incidents about the technology. The Connexion service is regularly used by passengers to make VoIP calls. "
The problem with these potential yak-fests by seatmates and by nearby or loud passengers is being unable to escape from them. That will be quite stressful for some folks. It's not possible mid-flight to walk out of a plane in disgust. It's easy to foresee a spike in "air rage" incidents. The airlines may be forced to limit talk hours on longer flights (say two hours and up), or to provide "sound hoods" (although it's difficult to see how these could be designed to work well in such cramped quarters).
These first efforts at mass access to in-air telephony will be mildly interesting social experiments.
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I have been personally involved in wifi certifications in aircraft. I have never seen any interference with navigation systems. I attribute this to the low rf levels of wifi. Not so with cell phones, their much higher transmit levels can cause all kinds of havoc with communication/navigation. I have seen cell phone use in the cockpit (of corporate jets) cause the cockpit audio to go nuts. The upcoming certification of cell phones in the air all center around "picocells", which force the cell phones to transmit at lower power by associating with the on-board picocell and not with on-the-ground cell towers. I am doubtful that picocells will actually get certified, as it all hinges around sucessfully keeping the cell phone's power at a minimum, which may be very difficult in practice.