New Delhi: Traveling in an airplane is always a good experience except the wait to use your mobile phones or check that one message you were waiting for before boarding your plane.
Now the wait will soon be over, but here is the catch you, you can surf the internet but won’t be able to make any voice calls due to security reasons.
Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan in an interview with TOI told that the Ministry has already sent a final notification regarding allowing mobile services on board to the law ministry.
“Once it is approved, we will issue the notification regarding its rollout,” she said, adding, voice services will be barred.
“We will be inviting applications only for data now. On voice, the gateway issue is there. We need to have the mobile voice gateway within India.”
In order to allow voice services on board, only Indian/ local gateways and satellites will be allowed for providing this service said the committee of secretaries (CoS) which is led by the cabinet secretary.
Looking at security issues, the CoS preferred the India-based gateways.
This surely means that Trai has not yet objected to the use of international gateways for providing in-flight connectivity.
The telecom ministry has already discussed the issue with the aviation secretary.
To have the gateways in India, companies will need to investments on the ground (for equipment) as well as in space.
There are also issues related to the upgradation of the aircraft and their capacity to offer internet services which need attention for bringing the service on board.
The decision to allow calls and internet on the air was approved by the Telecom Commission on May 1, following which the government had expressed hopes of the services being rolled out by August.