Irish pilots attack airbourne calls

25 Apr 2006 | 09:55 BST

By Tony Dennis

PLANS TO offer the ability to make mobile phone calls possible during flights have been attacked by the Irish Airline Pilots' Association. Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's CEO, has said his airline hoped to launch the service in 2007.

The association criticised the move claiming that there's no certainty that such systems won't affect navigation systems. There are a number of systems that will enable mobile phones to make calls already being marketed.

One of them is offered by Connexion, a subsidiary of Boeing (which supplies 'planes to Ryanair). Another firm, Altobridge, which is based in Ireland also markets a system that enables mobile phones to be used almost anywhere.

The product is effectively a mini base station that connects to a GSM network via a satellite link.

While most critics also claim that having passengers moving at 400 mph on an airplane would confuse operators' base stations below, in the USA the government is planning to auction licenses to operate voice and data services on aircraft.

Amongst the companies thought to be bidding for such licenses are: - JetBlue,Verizon Airfone, Acadia Broadband, Aircell, Nsoro and Space Data Spectrum. µ

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