The new product is an adapted version of the RBS 2708 base station, adapted in size and antenna system for operating in planes. Calls will be over GSM from the phone to the base station, then over satellite from plane to ground, and then back over the normal GSM network from there on.
A spokesperson for the Stockholm-based company said the system represents a significant advance on previous in-flight telephony offerings in that they offered cordless phones that were resident on the plane with their own numbers, whereas in this case passengers can use their own phone.
Since it supports up to 60 simultaneous calls (outbound or inbound), there will clearly be a requirement for multiple base stations on larger planes such as the new Airbus giant, but Ericsson said there would be no problem in deploying several 2708s on a single plane.
The spokesperson declined to speculate how much an airborne call would cost, but clearly there will need to be a premium vis-a-vis terrestrial telephony. With companies like Connected by Boeing and OnAir developing WiFi-in-the-sky offerings that will offer $30 surfing for the duration of long flights such as London-LA, a laptop with a Skype client and headphones might represent a way of bypassing such expense.
