EU to Permit In-Flight Use of Mobile Phones

The European Commission plans to announce new regulations which would allow airplanes to offer in-flight phone calls when flying anywhere within the EU 25 countries - reports the International Herald Tribune. The plans are due to be announced later today are significant not solely for the regulatory change itself, but as a further move for the central EU to take more control of telecoms regulation from the national bodies.

The regulations are understood to cover the use of picocells operating at 1800Mhz within aircraft which connect to satellites for the backhaul connection.

The plan should enable a single license covering the whole of the EU, so airline firms and telco operators do not need to secure seperate licenses for each of the twenty-five countries of the EU.

The UK and France have been moving towards permitting mobile phones to be used during flights - but not during take off and landing.

"It's very good news," said Charlie Pryor, spokesman for OnAir, an Airbus joint venture based in Geneva and one of two companies offering the in-flight mobile phone technology, along with AeroMobile, a British joint venture with the Norwegian phone company Telenor. "It is an important step to making communication on board aircraft happen," he said. "It has been a long road to get to this point but it is very good news that it is happening."

On the web: International Herald Tribune

Posted to the site on 7th April 2008