UK Airline Tests SMS Service on London-Moscow Flights

UK based airline, BMI has announced that it is to start trials of in-flight text messaging from mobile phones on flights between London and Moscow. The service, which is being supplied by OnAir, is being trialled for six months on a single Airbus A320 aircraft operating between Heathrow and Moscow.

The UK launch follows the granting of telecommunications regulatory approval by Ofcom.

Peter Spencer, managing director of bmi, said "The trial will help us address some of the social and etiquette issues regarding the use of mobile communications devices inflight and provide valuable customer feedback which will be at the heart of deciding how the service is developed and rolled out across the remainder of our mid haul fleet. We have chosen not to implement the voice call option as part of the trial."

Mobile OnAir relies on satellite communications from Inmarsat, Swift Broadband, for high speed air-to-ground communications. The passengerĂ's device connects to the OnAir system via a mini-base station on the aircraft, based around a picocell, which picks up signals from PDAs and phones and sends them to a satellite. From there they go to OnAirĂ's ground network, then out to the public network.

The OnAir technology can allow up to 12 simultaneous calls per picocell, as well as unlimited SMS text messages and emails. If required, further picocells can be added, increasing the number of simultaneous calls.

Posted to the site on 17th December 2008