Mobile calls take flight in Europe

The FCC may have decided against allowing mobile phone calls on planes in the U.S., but that doesn't mean that mobile calls are grounded elsewhere in the world. Air France recently started testing an in-flight calling system on a few of its planes and the results were...well, a bit turbulent. First off, only six passengers can make a call at a time, to avoid interference with the plane's equipment. Then there's the price of making a call from the air: 3 Euros or almost $5 USD a minute. Finally there's the issue of the call quality. "From Seat 14C, Mr. Germain punched in the number on his cellphone to his assistant in Paris and waited a few moments for the signal to bounce from a satellite in space to a receiver on the ground 39,000 feet below," the New York Times reported. "'I'm not hearing you very well,' the assistant yelled when he got through. 'It sounds like I'm talking to a small robot.'"

For more on in-flight calls:
- see this New York Times article