A common announcement which we hear on board is “Switch off your mobile phones”. There are some security threats in using the mobile phones in flight. Of late airline industry and technology providers have been discussing on the plans to allow mobile services in the flight. As a result of these discussions two companies were established to provide this service.
The cell phones in flight use dedicated air-to-ground frequencies that were used previously for seatback telephone services (Airfone and Air One services) offered in the flight. Since these frequencies are strictly dedicated for air-to-ground communications and are separate from those used for wireless communication on ground, the risk of interference with the wireless network is eliminated.
An aircraft providing this service has an antenna and a mini GSM network. While making a call, the GSM devices connect to this onboard antenna which sends the voice and data through the connected satellite uplink to the communication infrastructure furnished on the ground, which routes the voice and data to the public networks. Passengers are billed by their network operator for calls and SMS messages - just as if they are roaming in another country.
The aircraft needs to be equipped with four main components:
- A 'picocell' which provides the radio interface to mobile phones in the cabin.
- An Onboard Control Equipment which ensures that onboard mobile phones operate in compliance with aviation certification and telecommunications regulatory requirements.
- A server to manage communications centrally, establishing calls with the ground segment over the air-to-ground link, and interfacing with aircraft systems.
- An air-to-ground modem to allocate air-to-ground resources according to the demands of the server.
OnAir, a joint venture of SITA and Airbus, and AeroMobile, a joint venture of ARINC and Telenor, are the two market leaders providing this technology in many of the airlines. The GSM and GPRS network technologies and Inmarsat SwiftBroadband satellite link being used enables passengers to use their mobile devices and laptops for calls, text messages, emailing and Internet browsing, as they do on the ground.
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