But that is starting to change. Wi-Fi has been installed on a number of airlines, including Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Austrian Airlines. Others intend to follow suit. A whole new market is being created.

A new study from ABI Research, "In-flight Mobile and Wi-Fi Services: Market Potential and Challenges," provides a comprehensive review and assessment of this complex but potentially lucrative market. It assesses regulatory bottlenecks and technical solutions, as well as forecasting market growth and capital expenditure.

Mobile phones were originally banned in flight because they log on to terrestrial networks and cause network management chaos; but they also radiate at their maximum power, and there was concern about possible interference with the aircraft's avionics.

Now companies such as Qualcomm, Siemens and Ericsson have developed pico-cell technologies that will allow the use of both GSM and CDMA mobile phones during flights, without causing any interference.

"The in-flight Wi-Fi and mobile communications market holds considerable promise," says ABI Research's Director or Research for Europe, Jake Saunders, "but regulatory hurdles, satellite communications bandwidth and pricing will constrain the market potential in the short to medium term."

ABI Research believes that the market will develop once the regulatory barriers have been removed. For the next five years, much of the activity will be Wi-Fi related, but as regulatory obstacles to mobile communications are removed, their usage on aircraft will build.

"We expect that in-flight mobile communications services will first start in Europe in 2007," adds Saunders. "Asia will follow, then North America."

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