Submitted by Mike Grenville on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:59

Australian authorities have given the go ahead for one Quantas aircraft to allow passengers to send and receive SMS in a one year trial.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has enabled a limited evaluation of GSM mobile phones and GPRS devices on a commercial aircraft.

The evaluation – which is limited to one aircraft for up to 12 months - will be conducted by Qantas.

‘The granting of permissions for the evaluation service is the culmination of many months of work aimed at facilitating an industry need,' said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman. ‘The application to conduct the evaluation touched on a number of ACMA's responsibilities in the radiocommunications and telecommunications regulatory areas.'

To clear the way for the evaluation, ACMA has granted various approvals and exemptions including a carrier licence and a scientific assigned apparatus licence for a network control unit, and two Nominated Carrier Declarations.

The evaluation will be conducted on one Qantas passenger aircraft operating only on domestic Australian routes. Qantas has decided to commence the evaluation with email and text only, disabling voice services. ACMA and other government bodies will consider the potential for permanent regulatory arrangements for the service once the results of the evaluation are known.

A network control unit (NCU) is a device designed to facilitate on-board mobile phone communications, by passengers, in the 1.8 GHz band under a roaming agreement with the mobile phone user's normal carrier. Part of the NCU blocks access to terrestrially-based radiocommunications in the frequency bands 870 – 960 MHz or 825 – 845 MHz (the 900MHz band). The system consists of pico-cells on-board aircraft, connected by satellite link to a ground GSM/GPRS switching system. The airborne part of the system is connected to the terrestrial part by the aircraft's satellite system.

Cabin Crew Control

The system will also allow a service level control by the Crew Control Panel which is intended to give the cabin crew the ability to vary the service level on-board the aircraft should aircraft operation requirements dictate. This is proposed to include functions such as the ability to disable voice service allowing text-only capabilities, and splitting VIP/crew and passenger services.