The Hindu : Front Page : Etiquette questions over net access

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Wednesday, Dec 26, 2007
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Etiquette questions over net access

“Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are (seated) close together”

NEW YORK: Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep.

Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 ft. (10,000 metres) — and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months.

“This gets into a ticklish area,” said Vint Cerf, one of the Internet’s chief inventors and generally a critic of network restrictions. “Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are (seated) close together and may be able to see each other’s PC screens. More to the point, young people are often aboard the plane.”

Technology providers and airlines are already making decisions. Some will block services such as Internet phone calls altogether while others will put limits and install filters on content. And traffic management tools that are frowned upon on terra firma could be commonplace in the air.

Panasonic Avionics Corp., a Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. unit testing airborne services on Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd., is designing its high-speed Internet services to block sites on “an objectionable list,” including porn and violence, said David Bruner, executive director for corporate sales and marketing.

He said airlines based in more restrictive countries could choose to expand the list.

The company also is recommending that airlines permit Internet-based phone calls only on handsets with wireless Wi-Fi capabilities — the technology delivering access within the passenger cabin. Bruner said the company believes Wi-Fi handsets use less bandwidth than telephone software that runs on laptops.

Airlines, he said, also could block incoming calls — and the annoying ring tones they produce — or designate periods of quiet time.

OnAir, which has European certification for airborne cellular services, plans to give airlines similar choices, Chief Executive Benoit Debains said. Although some airlines are concerned about noise, Debains said, enabling voice would generate more revenue than data-only services.

Air France, which plans to start allowing cellular calls through OnAir within months, said it would see how people use such services before crafting rules.

“Are you going to reach your wife to tell her what you did the entire day or just tell her, `Can you pick me up at the airport?”’ Air France spokeswoman Marina Tymen said, adding that passengers might tell the airline that data services fulfill all their needs.

U.S. airlines are largely taking the opposite approach.

With possible exceptions for crew members and federal air marshals, flights on AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and Alaska Air Group Inc.’s Alaska Airlines won’t have access to Internet-based phone services like eBay Inc.’s Skype. — AP

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