The in-flight entertainment (IFE) industry has developed entertainment and information services that allow a passenger's home experience to be replicated in the air. Seatback IFE provides video and audio entertainment and in-flight telephones/facsimiles provide communication services to which passengers are accustomed on the ground. The latest services replicate e-mail and text messaging, with short text messaging, for example, introduced by Austrian Airlines and Lauda Air last year, with Virgin Atlantic and Singapore Airlines recently introducing similar services. Despite this, passengers increasingly want to use their own devices on board, particularly mobile telephones. A number of companies are developing systems that allow safe use of mobile telephones on board aircraft. These systems would operate by providing an airborne mobile telephone base station (or picocell) aboard the aircraft which would command the handset to operate at lower power and isolate the onboard mobile network and telephone from the outside world. "IFE can enable safe PED use and can provide PED functionality," says Peter Lemme, chief technology officer at in-flight e-mail/internet service provider Tenzing.
Source: Flight International
