Altobridge, the inflight GSM personal communications developer, has reacted to the UK CAA’s reiteration of a ban on inflight mobile phone use. Ceo Mike Fitzgerald said: “The CAA probably has an understanding that there are solutions that could be coming on to the market, but they haven’t actually seen a front company which is going to deliver a solution. Our software would offer a level of safety that doesn’t exist today.”

Ireland-based Altobridge’s team comes from some of the major mobile phone providers, including Eriksson, Nokia and Motorola. Fitzgerald said: “This company’s been going since the beginning of last year, with the specific intention of putting GSM mobile phones on aircraft. The solution will launch on business aircraft first as our research in North America showed that there was a great deal of demand from these passengers. The barriers of entry in this market are also very low.”

We asked Fitzgerald why a passenger wouldn’t simply use an onboard phone. He replied: “Due to fractional ownership thousands of customers are using the same group of aircraft, so actually trying to contact someone inflight can be very difficult. The CAA has banned mobile phones because they’re worried about the issue of interference. But if you put our system onboard, it eliminates the possibility of interference by dictating very low power levels. We’re now offering to work together with the CAA to decide what these low power levels should be.”

The cost of the system will be around $100,000 for the average business aircraft. “If you’ve already got a Satcom system onboard the aircraft, we’ll utilise that link - so we’re not going to ask people to buy new equipment.

“Effectively users will simply be roaming on to another network; it’s just that this one will be in the sky,” said Fitzgerald.

Altobridge is looking to supply the solution to the well-known avionics companies, including Honeywell and Rockwell Collins. Fitzgerald said: “We decided against dealing directly with the operators, because companies that have attempted to do this before wanted to be everything and failed. So we’ve decided to stand back and become the true vendor.

The company will be prototyping on an aircraft in the fourth quarter of this year, with first deliveries expected around six months later. “Although there were certain discussions with regulators and airlines at the end of the nineties on this topic, the catalyst was really September 11. The number one basic requirement people wanted after the tragedy was to use their mobile phones on aircraft. As it stands, when people are told to turn off their mobile phones around ten per cent don’t do it, for one reason or another,” he added.