ET View: In-flight telephony will signal the end of India's peaceful skies

The lowest decibel levels within India are usually in airborne environs, discounting the muted roar of aircraft engines, of course. Those few inflight hours are the only time Indians perforce have to restrict their instinctive loquacity to fellow passengers.

Now all guarantees of such peace are up in the air, now that the Telecom Commission has decided to allow inflight mobile phone calls and internet access soon. This means, of course, that India will no longer have the dubious distinction of being the only country besides North Korea to disallow inflight phone and data access. But given that modalities such as licences for these service providers and suitable tariffs are yet to be worked out, it is still a pie in the sky.

At present rates of Rs 125-150 per minute for calls and Rs500-1,000 for an hour’s internet access are doing the rounds.


Apart from legitimate security concerns, the moot question is whether these services will be geared to encourage passengers to have a natter in mid-air, or be made expensive enough to discourage those who simply want to show off to someone. If the intention is the former, then the cacophony that now begins the minute airplanes land and the crew announces that mobile phones can be used, will become an inescapable inflight feature too.