markh14: so how will it work?
you hop onto the plane and what appears on your screen? instead of vodafone or telecom will it say 'air new zealand'?
if there is no notification alot of people may get caught out by the high data costs.
do you just text phone numbers normally like 021 or do you need the country code?
From what I have read airlines usually contract out to a mobile provider to provide the service on the plane so it probably won't be airnz that comes up on the phone.
They will probably have the details of how to use it and how much it costs in the magazine or provide it on another form specific to the feature.
Most airlines also usually only let feature like this be used in business or first class.
Emirates have a service where you can send texts from your entertainment system where your swipe your credit card to send the message and when it is replyed to a message will come up on your console saying that you have a message waiting and if you have moved seats for some reason you can also check for messages at other consoles by using your credit card to identify yourself.
This feature cost $1USD a text so was not cheap.
The thing that would annoy me on the plane would be teenagers texting hard core that don't realise how much it costs and they will rack a big bill up for mum and dad without thinking about it.
In that situation it is mum and dads fault if they don't inform the teen on how much these things cost or even investigate the cost themselves.
Dion
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