Jaunted

In-Flight WiFi: No Phones for You!

3/10/2008 at 11:13 AM
Tags: WiFi, In-Flight WiFi, Charles Ogilvie, Virgin America, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Air France (all tags)

Besides open skies, in-flight WiFi stands to be one of the biggest travel storylines of the year as heaps of carriers add the service to their fleets in 2008. That means its time for another look at the etiquette of airborne VoIP calls--and what airlines are doing to stop them.

In the US, where Virgin America, Southwest and JetBlue plan to launch web access, phone calls won't be allowed. VA's Charles Ogilvie explains:

An airborne environment is a confined environment. You don't want 22B yapping away or playing a boom box.

But Europeans, as we know, love their cell phones:

Air France, which plans to start allowing cellular calls through (service provider) OnAir within months, said it would see how people use such services before crafting rules.

What could be even more interesting than the debate over blocked or unblocked phone calls is what sort of filtering software airlines choose to use in the air. Sadly, it'll probably end up being as draconian as DIA's web nanny.

Related Stories:
· Are Airlines and Travelers Ready to Surf the Skies? [AP, via Orlando Sentinel]
· In-Flight WiFi: Going International [Jaunted]
· In-Flight WiFi coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: i'm george]