Low-Cost Ryanair To Allow In-Flight Mobiles

Written by Adam Gosling

Monday, 04 September 2006

Europe's largest low fares airline, Ryanair is the latest in a growing list of carriers planning to allow travellers unfettered access to their mobile phone in flight. The company has said it will begin allowing calls, texting, email at International Roaming rates during the second half of 2007. The announcement follows a recent one from Australian carrier Qantas which said it would start a trial of the mile high cell phone club. The technology being used by Ryanair is from OnAir, which has already done deals with players such as Air France, bmi, TAP Portugal and KLM. OnAir recently (3  AIUgust, 2006) signed a distribution deal to become a distribution partner for Inmarsat's new SwiftBroadband service. In addition to regular mobile phone features, the system allows access to services such as information on connecting flights or baggage collection on their cell phones andwhat the company describes as "affordable" in-flight internet access via laptop. At the time Inmarsat CEO Andrew Sukawaty said, "OnAir is creating a whole new market. Previously, Inmarsat's aeronautical services targeted long-haul twin-aisle aircraft, with low bandwidth limiting the offer. Now, the development of lightweight, compact avionics systems is bringing broadband to the single-aisle, short-haul market." The latest deal with Ryanair will see the carrier's entire fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft fitted with OnAir's onboard mobile communications solution - making Ryanair the first European airline to offer Europe-wide mobile phone services during flights across its entire fleet of aircraft. OnAir intend to fit 50 Ryanair aircraft during the second half of 2007, with the remainder of the fleet receiving installations from early 2008 onwards. The satellite broadband links are backed up by a ground network to be supplied by OnAir's telecoms infrastructure partner, Monaco Telecom. The Growing list of airlines planning to deploy cell phone technology on-board their aircraft comes as Boeing makes ready to remove its own satellite-based high-speed broadband service as no real market for the service ever materialised. www.ryanair.com Related news items Consumer Advice For Premium Mobile Services -03/09/2007 Australian Idol Live On Next G -19/08/2007 Qantas Gets Go Ahead For Cell Phone Trial -18/04/2007 ACCC Sets Interim Mobile Prices -18/02/2007 Critical Path's Memova Mobile 3.0 Brings Mobile Email and Content to Virtually All of Today's Consum -13/02/2007 Newer news items Data-Linc Appoints Local Distie -14/09/2006 Cost Effective SSL VPN -12/09/2006 Wireless broadband Recovers In Bush -10/09/2006 Approaching 285 Million 3G Users -10/09/2006 BigAir Goes Off-Peak With iBurst -06/09/2006 Older news items Nokia, SingTel To Launch Dual-Mode Telephony -03/09/2006 With Revenue Up 126% - It's A Wizz -28/08/2006 Feds Fund Satellite Broadband For Remote Australia -26/08/2006 Wireless Broadband Gets A New Spin -24/08/2006 Wireless Broadband Future Forum -13/08/2006 Tag This Now: