Airlines set to allow cell use on board

During the European Winter Season, Lufthansa operates up to seven weekly flights between the carrier's Bavarian Hub in Munich and Cape Town.

During the European Winter Season, Lufthansa operates up to seven weekly flights between the carrier's Bavarian Hub in Munich and Cape Town.

Published Sep 23, 2015

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London - For some travellers, one of the pleasures of flying is the chance to turn off their cellphone.

But one of the last havens of phone-free peace is set to disappear.

Lufthansa has signed a deal allowing passengers to use their handsets on board from mid-2016

And other airlines including British Airways are expected to follow the German carrier’s example, making mobile usage the norm on all European flights by the summer of 2017.

Under the plans unveiled on Tuesday, passengers will be able to check their emails, log on to Facebook and send instant messages on board aircraft, at the same sorts of speeds as they do on the ground.

And while they will not be able to make traditional telephone calls, some airlines will allow them to talk to their friends and colleagues in mid-air, using internet-based voice services such as Skype.

The idea is likely irritate some people, whether at the thought that they will be unable to escape the demands of their office, or that they will find themselves trapped next to a passenger who spends the whole journey talking.

But Leo Mondale, president of Inmarsat Aviation, the satellite company behind the scheme, said that there is an enormous appetite among younger travellers who want to remain plugged in to the internet throughout their entire journey.

‘My kids are in their twenties and there would be absolutely no hesitation on their part,’ he said. ‘I share [the view that mobile usage on planes could be intrusive]. But we’ve just got to learn to use the off switch.’

Lufthansa says it will block services like Skype to stop talkative travellers from annoying their neighbours - but Mondale says some airlines will try it.

Certain airlines in the US have already experimented with internet access, but the Inmarsat service on European flights will be around 10 times faster. They will also be much cheaper. Although airlines will be theoretically allowed to charge customers for internet access, many mainstream carriers in Europe are expected to offer it for free, or as a perk for loyal customers.

By contrast, some mainstream US airlines charged passengers up to £19.30 per flight for access to slow 2G broadband.

Inmarsat said it will use a combination of different technologies to relay its signals at 4G speeds, and that it will continually update them to keep pace with advances for normal broadband usage.

It will depend heavily on a network of phone masts on the ground which will relay internet messages from airborne planes, down to earth and back again.

A carefully planned mix of so-called ‘micro-cells, ‘macro-cells’ and ‘pico-cells’ will ensure that there is enough bandwidth to field hundreds of thousands of emails from passengers circling around airports, and along popular flight routes. The masts will be provided by Deutsche Telekom, Inmarsat’s partner on the European network.

Meanwhile, a number of satellites above the earth will provide back-up in areas where mobile phone masts are thin on the ground, especially on the edges of Europe.

Inmarsat has also launched a satellite which will eventually provide broadband coverage to air-borne customers on planes crossing the Atlantic.

British Airways has yet to sign up to the scheme, but it has agreed a formal ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Inmarsat and is in advanced talks to introduce the scheme.

Daily Mail

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