Israeli company Aerophone Ltd. has developed a communication system that enables telephone calls to be made from airplanes—independent of GSM/CDMA ground stations. The system supports all wavebands and requires neither prior written registration of the passengers nor a particular billing system. Calls cost $1.60 per minute and are invoiced via the normal mobile telephone bill.

The development has been made possible by the installation of so-called picocells (miniature GSM stations) in airplanes, as well as by servers and transceivers that link to telecommunication satellites and receiving stations for the Ku band (Kurtz-under band: a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies). The picocells in the immediate vicinity of passengers automatically reduce the energy output of logged-in mobile telephones to a minimum so they don’t have negative effects on the aircraft electronic systems.

Installation and operation of the Aerophone system is free of charge for the airlines. While I applaud the continued development of technology, as a frequent flyer, I am not thrilled with the idea of listening to phone conversations while trapped on a plane.