Over the last year, almost a dozen airlines have announced plans to allow passengers to send SMS from their own mobile phones. Passengers in Australia, France, Turkey, Ireland, Malaysia, India, and other countries are now using mobile devices in flight, or will be able to do so sometime in 2008. However, passengers in the United States, constrained by the FCC ban, will have to wait bit more in order to start using their mobile devices while flying.
According to Freesky Research, the ability to send data to the ground is allowing Middle Eastern, Asian, and European business travelers greater chances to be productive on commercial jets than U.S. fliers…
Yes, we do agree some mobile services like SMS and data services should be available for in flight usage. Hopefully, the FCC folks will rethink their decision and we’ll hear more from them on the subject later in the year. In the meantime, you may want to learn more from Freesky Research’s full report titled “In Flight Text Messaging.”