While the mobiles have become inseparable part of life, it is more and more difficult to spend even a couple of hours with a mobile turned off. Especially so with the business people, who are used to answering their phone 24 hours a day, even while sleeping. However, it is exactly business people whom you can meet in the airplanes most often. One can never forget their dissatisfied faces, while they are turning off their mobiles before the plane startup.

To avoid such inconvenience, the European regulators began to bring to life the technology allowing mobile phone calls from a plane through the European airspace.

At the moment usage of mobiles while on plane is prohibited, due to errors it inflicts on onboard communication and navigation systems.

The service will make it possible, to use mobiles during a flight, at a height of 3000 meters and higher. Although the costs of such calls will be larger then usual, still the regulators across EU are convinced in the great potential of the technology.

The system allowing calls during flights will be using a low-power on-board base station (pico cell), which will be connected to the passengers’ mobiles. Pico cell will create a network area encompassing the cabin of the plane. It will submit the signals received from the on-board mobiles to the satellite, which in its turn will make connection with the mobile phones on ground.

The network control unit in the cabin blocks all signals from the mobile networks on the ground, making it impossible for the mobiles to connect to them.

Although the service will provide connection for the G2 phones at first, it will be updated to encompass 3G and other standards very soon, according to the spokesman of the UK regulator- Ofcom.