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American Airlines and Aircell’s Gogo are determined to keep the airplane cabin free of VoIP calls, regardless of what people say they can do to bypass filtering. A continued clash between technology, de facto social norms for airline travel and “I can say and do whatever I want, whenever I want” ethos seems inevitable.  

American and Aircell are actively working to make sure everyone knows their position. Aircell’s PR representative sent this in an email  to FierceVoIP at 9:35 AM ET this morning from –

“Despite the information floating around on the web, it’s against American’s policy and Gogo’s terms of service to use VoIP. Aircell has multiple protocols and practices in place to prevent the use of VoIP. Obviously, it is extremely difficult to stop every instance of VoIP but Aircell is monitoring and working constantly to enforce American’s policy and Gogo’s terms of service.”

From a technology perspective, Dan York, Best Practices Chair for the VoIP Security Alliance, has posted several very nicely crafted pieces outlining how Aircell is likely monitoring the data flow between its service and the rest of the world and tweaking it to filter out suspected voice and video calls.  York points out evading Gogo filtering is likely to turn into an escalating measure/counter-measure war.

What do stressed-out travelers likely think? If the reaction to enabling cell phone service in airplanes is any measure, it won’t be pretty. A lot of them, some prompted by the Association of Flight Attendants, wrote the Federal Communications Commission asking to keep the airplane cabin cell phone free.

In the future, travelers willing to press their luck to buck the system might be wise to note the key phrases “American’s policy” and “Gogo’s terms of service.”  It is this reporter’s speculation that documented and habitual violation of Gogo’s terms of service might result in offenders being banned from using the in-flight service (i.e. Gogo doesn’t have to take your credit card).  Not to mention potential steps American Airlines might take as a matter of principal against boorish passengers violating clearly stated policy.

Bottom line: Are a couple of in-flight calls really worth it?

For more:
- Dan York’s latest blog on Aircell VoIP blocking
- Aircell: VoIP will be muted, reports GigaOm

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