Leader: Expect in-flight chit-chat

News broke over the weekend of a flight by an American Airlines jet featuring in-cabin cellular technology from mobile-equipment company Qualcomm.

Qualcomm, long known for providing some of the building blocks of modern cellular communication, offered what is known as a picocell. It is said to be safe, not interfering with other equipment inside the aircraft, and efficient, connecting to other telephones using an uplink to a Globalstar satellite rather than lots of signals reaching cell sites on the ground, some 30,000 feet below. (A problem for hand-offs from one site to another at that speed, as much as anything else.)

The prospect of in-flight conversations looms, somewhat worryingly for some. But should we be so worried?

Modern aircraft have carried seat-back telephone handsets for some time now. OK, we hear you say, how often are they used? And you're right, at around $10 per minute, we can see why they stay welded to those seats. One anecdote this publication has heard involves someone trying to use them for data connectivity - by taking them apart and whipping out the crocodile clips. But that was some time ago, before current air safety strictness.

A more modern alternative involves voice over Wi-Fi. In essence, a plane equipped with Connexion by Boeing or a rival in-flight wireless data system can allow a laptop or PDA to become a soft phone. Running voice over IP is becoming common and as long as the wireless connection quality is good enough, voice can be run in the same way as any other application.

A spokesman for Boeing told silicon.com that in the still early days of this system, there is no evidence of passengers striking up (probably toll free) conversations. But he said: "You can do anything on one of the [Connexion-equipped] planes online as you do in your living room online."

The fear from many passengers is all about having to sit next to someone nattering on about their private life - not just on the train to the airport but on the ensuing eight-hour flight too. This publication predicts telephony-free seating areas on planes with a polite question asked just after the decades-old "aisle or window?" question.

Sure, sometimes it won't work out. But if you do end up next to an intolerable conversationalist, expect them to be hooked up to their laptop as well as their mobile phone. (Or maybe, just maybe, one of the few upcoming mobile handsets that will also have Wi-Fi radios built-in.)