After talking to Emirates last year about onboard mobile phone use, I said that I was “less averse” to the idea. Now I’ve moved even further. I’ve decided to take a stand. Mobile phones should be allowed on airplanes. I know, you hate the idea, right? But there’s a lot of good that can come out of it, and I think that outweighs the bad.

I spoke with several communications providers at the Airline Passenger Experience Association show last month, and there was a common theme out there regarding mobile phones. Use of these devices in the air is increasing worldwide, and the US is quickly becoming the only place around to still want to keep their use banned. Now that mobiles are seeing more widespread use globally, we can finally judge whether the fears in the US are merited or not.

The reality is that it hasn’t been much of a problem at all so far, and that’s probably due to the rate structure. The way it’s set up, you can think of airplanes as a separate country in the mobile world. Just as you would roam when you go to any other country, you roam when you get on an airplane. If you have an international plan, you would be able to make calls, receive text messages, and surf the web as your plan allows.

And a lot of people do just that. If you need to tell someone you’re late or change the spot where you want to meet, a quick text message will do the trick. Or a quick email can do the same and it won’t cost much. And yes, if you need to actually call Aunt Bessie to tell her where to bring the Cadillac to meet you, you can do that as well, but roaming charges can ramp up quickly. So it’ll be a quick conversation.

Everyone’s worst nightmare is getting stuck next to the valley girl who giggles and screams with her friend on the other line throughout the flight. That’s just not happening and it’s not likely to happen. (If it does, her parents will never let her out of the house again.) Yes, I’m sure that at some point this will happen, but social pressure and flight attendant intervention can solve that problem (along with determined staring at close range).

You’re far more likely to get stuck next to a gregarious seatmate who wants to talk your ear off all flight anyway. Phones just aren’t proving to be a problem. That could change if rates plunged, but I don’t see that happening in the near future.

But if that were to happen, the airline doesn’t even have to allow phone calls at all. Look at British Airways, for example. Using the system from OnAir, with whom I spoke at the show, on their A318 flights between New York and London/City, you can send text messages or surf the web using your mobile network, but you can’t make phone calls. They’ve turned that functionality off.

Now, the US itself does make things difficult in that most of the world is centering on the GSM standard for inflight while many in the US use CDMA. That’s something that can be addressed, but not until it’s made legal to use your phone in the first place. I’m convinced that there is more benefit to be had than there is potential harm to be made. Let’s open up the rules and see what happens.

[Original Photo via Flicker user Kai Hendry]

Big news from the Blue Crew earlier this week when JetBlue announced it would finally be installing broadband internet onboard. But this isn’t just any internet, it’s Ka (“kay-ay”) band. What the heck is that and why should you care? Let me explain.

First, let’s start with the basics. There are two kinds of basic internet connections that you can use on an airplane. Air-to-ground and satellite. This should be pretty self-explanatory, but just in case . . .

Pretty easy, right? Air-to-ground is the most popular in the US right now thanks to Aircell’s aggresive push with GoGo. It’s cheap to install, but it’s harder to grow bandwidth without adding new towers on the ground. And the biggest constraint is that it only works where there is ground below. Sorry ocean-bound flights.

Satellite-based internet started off quickly out of the gate, but it stalled for awhile. Remember Connexion by Boeing? That was on planes years ago, and it was expensive. After the system folded, there was a big lull until recently.

Now satellite-based internet is back again. Row 44 is leading the charge in the US, and Southwest is putting it on a couple planes a week as we speak. Others, like Panasonic, are moving in quickly as well. It’s a more expensive and longer initial install process, but then it has the ability to work anywhere in the world as long as enough satellites are up and running. The system out there today uses the Ku (“Kay-you”) band.

Ka band is supposed to be the next big thing. For it to matter, it needs to do two things:

1. Be cheaper
2. Have more bandwidth

And that’s exactly the plan, but it’s not there yet. When I roamed the halls at the Airline Passenger Experience Association expo last week, the general consensus was that we were at least 5 years away from having a meaningful Ka band solution for airlines. There just aren’t enough satellites yet and certification takes a long time.

So how and why is JetBlue doing this? Let’s start with the “why” here. Take a look at this map showing routes from New York (couldn’t get a full route map, but this gives you a good idea).

As you can see, air-to-ground misses a huge chunk of the JetBlue network. The increasing growth into the Caribbean is a dark spot, not to mention all those Northeast flights to Florida that fly off the coast, out of range. So satellite makes a lot of sense.

But why not go with Ku band today instead of waiting until mid-2012 for the first install? It’s probably something JetBlue learned from its ill-fated BetaBlue experiment with onboard wifi. If you recall, BetaBlue was early out of the gate and used narrowband that only allowed you to check email and a couple of pre-determined websites. Nobody cared. So JetBlue wants to leapfrog to a more robust bandwidth system than what’s out there today. Oh, and it’ll be cheaper.

Besides, with its partnership with ViaSat, it will handle everything through its LiveTV subsidiary. Every time I’ve spoken with LiveTV in the past, the math hasn’t worked for them to get into the wifi world. It was just too expensive and usage wasn’t enough. Now that’s apparently changed.

I have to think that with this cheaper Ka band solution, it now makes sense for LiveTV. LiveTV can also offer this to other existing partners, like Continental which hasn’t started its GoGo trial yet. United only has GoGo on the handful of planes that fly from JFK to LA and San Francisco, so this could be a great opportunity.

The long leadtime might be bothersome, but it’s a calculated effort. Think about it for a second. Usage of wifi is very low right now, that we know for sure. But the expectation is that it will eventually be used much more. Two years isn’t that long to wait, I suppose, for something that isn’t seeing much use today.

But will it actually be two years? The certification process is long and arduous. If the plan is only to have coverage over the Continental US by then (listen to IAGBlog’s excellent interview with SVP Marketing/Commerical Marty St George on this), then that’s an easier task, but the satellites haven’t even been launched yet. I would assume this date is tentative.

And then, when will full coverage over the airline’s network be available? And will the performance and cost really come in as advertised? Hard to say at this point, though they apparently feel confident enough to make the announcement.

So, if everything works as planned, I like this. Nice work. Now, when are we going to see powerports?

All last week as I roamed the halls of the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Expo 2010, I kept asking myself the same question. Will any of these guys even be here in 20 years? It’s one thing to look at the near future of inflight entertainment, but the long run is a different story. I met with the big inflight entertainment providers Thales and Panasonic to see what they have in store for the future.

I fully expect that in 20 years, we’ll all have implanted iPads in our arms (Steve Jobs will stop at nothing less). Bandwidth will be far greater than what we imagine today, and that means all we’ll need is an internet connection and we can get all the content we’ll ever need either on the ground or in the air. So if that’s the case, then why do we need any other kind of inflight entertainment? I asked both Thales and Panasonic that question, and I’m not convinced that either one had a great answer.

Both of these companies have moved toward providing connectivity options, and they do see that as an integral piece of the future of IFE (to the point where it’s usually referred to these days as IFEC where the C is for communication). So for both companies, the future lies more with integration with other technologies than being a standalone.

Both providers have shiny new screens that look prettier, are more reliable, and are lighter (very important for the airlines to save fuel, of course). That’s important but it’s not revolutionary. They’ve also created more interactive remote controls that end up being mini-inflight entertainment devices themselves. So you can now watch a movie on the big screen and watch the moving map or play games on the remote control. (Some airlines could simply install the remote in the armrest and use that as their IFE.)

This is all fun and cool, but it’s not the main thrust of their efforts. It seems that the biggest move is toward personalization. Both providers are working on systems where you can create your own inflight entertainment experience before you even get to the airport. For Thales, they’ve created a system where you can go online and browse entertainment options. You’ll be able to create movie or music playlists and set a variety of custom settings, including meal choices, etc. The way they envision it, you’ll then be able to take your boarding pass on to the airplane and each screen will have a barcode scanner. This will then load your preferences.

For Panasonic, it’s a similar idea but I was shown how it would work from an iPhone. In that case, you’d be able to create your playlists and set everything up as you wanted. Then using the wifi on the airplane, you would be able to sync your seatback with your phone and your preferences would load up. This becomes particularly helpful when you’re on multiple flights. Let’s say you don’t finish your movie on one flight. When you sync up again on your next flight, it will have your movie right where you left off.

So these ideas are great for improving the experience that’s out there today, but I still envision a day when providing hardware isn’t necessary. Everyone will have their own connected device and the screens will either get larger or will incorporate projection technology of some sort to make it a better experience. I realize this is still years away, but I would think that these guys would at least be addressing that, and to a small extent, they are.

At some point way down the line, it will become an issue of either simply providing connectivity or providing superior content that people can access onboard. Right now, for example, the movie studios have deals that give what they call “early window” movies to airlines. So you can see movies on the plane that you aren’t available to rent yet. There could still be a place for things like that, if the system still works that way in 40 years, but that can be streamed to a device that you bring onboard.

For Panasonic, probably the best thing I saw that addressed this shift was a special error correction technology. In the future, the idea would be to allow people to use a Panasonic app to watch movies on their own devices with higher quality and less buffering. Of course, that’s only an issue in today’s bandwidth-constricted world. In 40 years it might not be necessary, but it was the best attempt I saw at an IFE provider trying to stay relevant in the distant (or not-so-distant) future.

Panasonic also showed off a simulated window technology. That’s right. Think about an airplane with no windows or with a different shape that makes people further from windows than they are today. This system would be like the holodeck on Star Trek where you could project windows on the wall with a view from outside. Or you could project a beach, or a movie. It’s up to you.

This was in the “cool” room, which means it’s cool, but it’s not happening in production anytime soon. I tend to think they’re going to need to keep stocking that room with new ideas for a day when regular hardware just doesn’t matter.

Good morning from Long Beach. I love when a conference comes to me instead of making me go to it. This year, the World Airline Entertainment Association came back to Long Beach, (and changed its name to the Airline Passenger Experience Association to make it sound more awesome). I was asked to be one of the judges to determine the single best achievement in inflight entertainment this year, so I thought I’d share with you some detail on how I looked at the group. Etihad may have won, but there were others that were quite deserving as well.

When the winner was announced, I found myself wishing that any further information had been given. I mean, it’s great to win, but shouldn’t other airlines get the benefit of knowing what made for a winning entry? I wrote about Etihad over on BNET, but here I want to focus on the other four finalists. Here they are in reverse alphabetical order (’cause it’s just more fun to shake things up like that sometimes).

Virgin America
Virgin America (and V Australia which also uses the Red entertainment system) were big winners overall, as you would expect, but the airline came up just short in this category. After winning last year with its menu-ordering system, Virgin America submitted its open tab functionality this year. I love this functionality, as I wrote before. In short, instead of having to swipe your card every time you want to buy something, this allows you to simply swipe once and then close-out at the end of the flight, like a bar tab.

The beauty of this is that it’s good for everyone. Passengers like it because they only have to swipe their credit cards once. The airline likes it because people spend more. In fact, Virgin America says that in the short month that it’s been on the fleet, there has been an appreciable increase in revenue, primarily food and beverage. Great stuff, an incredibly simple concept, and this is certainly worthy of being a finalist.

Emirates
The entry from Emirates was for a complete revamp of its passenger service video. This was a very strong entry as well, though I imagine many of you don’t even know what the service video is. When you depart on Emirates, you used to get a bulky, 5 minute long video explaining all the features on the flight. Using the entertainment system, making calls, frequent flier program benefits, etc, were all part of it. What the airline found was that 5 minutes was too long, and having shot these in aircraft cabins made for a very difficult process when a change was required. (Emirates doesn’t have any spares, so an airplane had to be pulled out of service for filming.) Instead, Emirates came up with a new concept.

Instead of getting into details on how to do everything, Emirates decided to make the video more of a primer to whet your appetite. It was cut down to 2 minutes, and nothing was filmed on the aircraft. Instead, most of it was filmed on a green screen and cut in ways that images could be inserted very easily, if changes were needed. The result? A very slick video that gets across enough basic info to get you interested. It also is so easy to update that it will never need to cost an arm and a leg to update in a timely manner. That’s good for the airline since it keeps costs low and good for the passenger since it keeps things up to date. And at only 2 minutes instead of 5, it’s much more pleasant as well.

El Al
El Al submitted its first new safety video in 8 years, and I think that makes it tough off the bat.

I mean, passengers don’t care about the safety video in general, and in fact, they hope they never have to use the information in there. But it’s obviously important information, and if a new video can get passengers to pay attention, that’s a big benefit. Air New Zealand has seemingly mastered that effort with its Nothing to Hide campaign (which won the award for best safety video this year). But El Al did create an entertaining, mildly funny, and informative video here.

The video is animated, and it’s hosted by a fairy that’s a flight attendant. (Hold your jokes, please.) The helpful fairy floats through the cabin explaining what needs to happen. It’s a good safety video, for sure, but it’s hard to see how this could be the single best achievement. Still, El Al has done a really good job of creating something that will keep passengers’ attention. And that does deserve some recognition.

Air France
Lastly, we have Air France which submitted its USB download feature this year. This is only on the A380, but essentially the airline will let you download a variety of content to a thumb drive so that you can take it with you to use on a layover or in a destination. I can see this being helpful with things like destination guides and transport maps (which are both offered) and with games for kids to keep them entertained. But will this be worthwhile? An increasingly large number of people are connected on the ground, so they might not be as interested in this. Also, who wants to carry a thumb drive around? I have to assume the ultimate goal is to have it sent via the internet to a smart phone or computer for easy access.

But for now, it’s hard to judge this. One of the proposed benefits is that it will enable the airline to create a new stream of revenue. Advertisers and content providers will need to line up to pay for this, but that hasn’t happened yet. It’s only on the A380 so there aren’t enough eyeballs for that to happen just yet. I could imagine a time where someone browses a destination guide and then has a coupon sent directly to a smart phone. That’s compelling, but it’s just not there now. Maybe this will prove to be a great move in a year or two, but it’s too early right now.

And that was it. They put us judges in a room on Sunday to listen to presentations from each of these. We had some really good debate about each one, and in the end, Etihad came out the winner, but not without a lot of contemplation.

Delta’s promised wifi updates have been few and far between, but yesterday we found out that the airline is basically done with its plans. Now that they have an armada of wifi-equipped planes, what are they going to do with them?

The A319, MD88, MD90, 737, and 757-300 fleets are completely done. There are only three 757-200s and five A320s that don’t have it. All the 767s that are going to be outfitted (the ones that fly domestically) have been completed. It’s only the DC9-50 fleet which lags with 25 airplanes left.

We know that people can use airborne wifi to surf the web, but we also know that for the most part, people aren’t using it very much yet. But with this entire fleet outfitted, Delta has shelled out millions. There has to be a way to make that money back, right? Here are some ideas, some uh, more serious than others.

• Integrate wifi capability into the seatback screens where available. Virgin America is working on this as we speak. It will allow all those people who don’t carry smart devices to pay to surf the web.
• Open up an off track betting outlet for people on the plane who love them some horse racing.
• Allow crews to use wifi to deal directly with Delta in order to reaccommodate passengers who are going to misconnect when they land.
• Instead of the old smoking vs non-smoking, open up porn vs non-porn sections.* (*Should only be done on airplanes with leather seats.)
• Have cached entertainment options on a server on the airplane that can be streamed to each seatback system or computer via wifi.
• Start sending spam from Delta email addresses to people on the plane for cheap Viagra and penile enlargement.
• Enable random chat with other GoGo users on other aircraft. Talk about cloud computing . . . (Rimshot, please.)

I know you’ve got better ones than I do. What say you?