| October, 2009 |  |
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Photo messaging finally comes to iPhone
AT&T says multimedia messaging (MMS) will be available on the Apple iPhone starting Sept. 25. The feature, which allows users to attach video clips and such to emails, will be enabled by a “software update on that day,” says AT&T, the exclusive U.S. distributor of the iPhone.
Why wait? Two words: Network capacity. AT&T says smartphone growth, led by the iPhone, has resulted in an “explosion of traffic” on its wireless networks. According to AT&T, usage of its wireless networks is up 350% year-over-year over the past two years, and shows no signs of abating. The company is adding extra equipment to handle the expected MMS load.
AT&T is the exclusive U.S. distributor of the iPhone.
One thing you still won’t find on the iPhone: tethering. The feature, which is popular in iPhone markets around the world, permits consumers to connect their device to a PC and use it like a modem. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel says network capacity is the issue, noting that iPhone owners are “very intensive data users.” Translation: AT&T isn’t prepared for the nationwide capacity drain that might occur once that feature is enabled.
Siegel says AT&T does plan to eventually offer tethering, however. When? He wouldn’t say. “We’re not announcing it yet. But when we’re ready, we will, of course.”
Should airlines let passengers make calls via Wi-Fi?
Roger Flessing was on an American Airlines flight to Seattle recently when he began speaking with his son on his iPhone.
Unsure of how his action might be received by others, the Tacoma resident says he spoke discreetly. But soon, he says, flight attendants were leaning over, asking for a demonstration on how to make calls on their mobile phones. “They were saying, ‘Wow this is great. We have to check our schedule, and we couldn’t do that before,’ ” says Flessing, who flies often for his job as a communications executive for the non-profit relief organization World Vision.
Flessing wasn’t making a conventional cellphone call. He was using Truphone, which allows smartphones to use wireless, or Wi-Fi, connections to make calls. The technology is known as Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP. Flessing also booted his laptop and videoconferenced with his brother using Skype, another VoIP application. He turned his computer to face the window so his brother could see the clouds. “My brother says, “How are you doing this?’ ”
It’s a question that domestic airlines will have to answer with more clarity if they plan — as they say they do — to block phone calls during flight now that Wi-Fi is accessible on about 600 planes in the USA and passengers can talk online as Flessing did.
It’s a controversial issue that’s triggering fierce debate among travelers, airlines and regulators. Federal regulations prohibit in-flight cellphone use — but not Internet-based phone calls — lest they interfere with flight operations and create congestion in ground cell towers. A bill in Congress seeks a similar ban on all in-flight voice communications by passengers.
It’s all the more controversial because airlines in Europe, Asia and the Middle East allow calls and have even taken it a step further by introducing pay-by-minute cellphone service using satellites.
Americans are split about in-flight mobile phones, a survey by the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics found. About 45% said cellphones should be banned on aircraft. About 40% said they should definitely or probably be allowed if they don’t pose a safety threat, according to the survey, which queried about 1,000 households.
A chief concern is the in-cabin noise level. Some fear that people may carry on long conversations on their cellphones. And people generally talk louder on cellphones because they can’t hear their own voices — unlike on landlines, which have a device that amplifies your voice and replays it through your earpiece.
Ban on talking isn’t ironclad
Although in-flight Internet is provided by third-party vendors, U.S. airlines make their own decisions on Wi-Fi phone use.
Currently, two companies in the USA offer in-flight Internet service: Chicago-based Aircell and California-based Row 44. Both companies say the airlines have asked that Internet-based phone calls be blocked.
But Flessing isn’t alone in discovering that this ban is hardly ironclad. Many fliers have blogged about their experience of Internet phone calls, even as airlines say they have the technology to block it.
“(Passengers using VoIP calls) is such a minute percent of people,” says John Happ of Aircell. “It has a particular footprint. We can snuff it out.”
Still, Happ says it’s a “cat-and-mouse” game that entails trying to keep up with new software makers and passengers who can bypass the ban. “It’s an ongoing process.”
Frederick St. Amour, a business development executive at Row 44, says travelers making Internet phone calls “create competition for bandwidth” that could result in slower speed for other passengers. Airlines could even consider charging for Internet-based phone calls because the service demands extra bandwidth, he says.
Passengers overseas are talking
Other countries aren’t so prudish about in-flight cellphone use.
The Geneva-based firm OnAir and the London-based vendor AeroMobile now offer technology to several international airlines that uses satellites to beam voice transmission to ground cell towers.
Emirates became one of the first airlines to offer cellphone service when it installed AeroMobile’s technology in March 2008. It’s now available on about 50 Emirates aircraft, says Steve Double, an AeroMobile spokesman.
Malaysian Airlines is another customer testing it, and “about half a dozen other airlines” will announce the service in “the coming weeks,” Double says. The service costs about $2 a minute, not including any out-of-country charges imposed by the user’s wireless carrier.
OnAir has installed its equipment on about 55 aircraft operated by several carriers, including Ryanair, Kuwait-based Wataniya Airways and Royal Jordanian. Air France tested its system for several months but has no plans to continue it. Other airlines that have signed on with OnAir for future deployment include Air Asia, British Airways, Hong Kong Airlines, Kingfisher, Qatar Airways and TAM.
Row 44 says it will provide cellphone service to Norwegian Air Shuttle, a regional carrier in Europe, early next year.
The social and etiquette concerns that perplex Americans haven’t been a major issue abroad, says OnAir CEO Benoit Debains. None of OnAir’s client airlines imposes a time limit on conversations, but an average call lasts two minutes. “There is kind of an etiquette built up,” he says.
Back in the USA, Flessing says he didn’t think his fellow passengers were upset about his calls on his recent American flight. His seatmate, an off-duty flight attendant, was curious and encouraged him to test Skype. Other passengers on his row also “were peeking over” out of curiosity.
“I’m very cautious about that,” he says. “I had my hand around my mouth. I used a video headset.”
Aeromexico to allow cellphone usage on its flights
In-flight cellphone usage is creeping ever closer to the United States. Bloomberg News reports Aeromexico, “Mexico’s largest airline, said it will let passengers use cellular phones on board its planes, after the (Mexican) government lifted a ban on such calls during flights.” The airline tells Bloomberg that flight attendants will be able to interrupt cell calls “if necessary” during flights.
The online publication Daily Tech says “the Mexican Communications and Transportation Department decided to lift the eight-year-old ban after discussing the topic with flight safety experts, engineers, pilots and flight crews, and passengers.”
Britain’s Press Association notes “the European Union made a similar decision last year. Malaysia Airlines also unveiled a service last year allowing passengers to make and receive calls on their mobile phones.” And Air Transport Intelligence writes today that “British Airways could consider a trial of voice calls using the OnAir mobile communication system installed on its transatlantic Airbus A318s, to assess demand and possible consequences.”
But good news for U.S. fliers opposed to the idea: The USA still prohibits in-flight voice calls on mobile phones.
| October, 2009 | |
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