Last week, the FAA announced that individuals would be able to use their cellular devices during the duration of their flights. While expanded in-flight cell phone usage is great news for consumers, it isn’t that simple. Recent changes to the Federal Aviation Administration’s policy of in-flight phone usage allow consumers to use devices throughout the duration of their flight, however any device that transfers data must still be in airplane mode.
Some WiFi providers have responded by offering calling solutions as part of their offering – but “that’s a scary proposition to some, the idea that your cabin will be full of loquacious loudmouths. Fortunately, the voice part of the Text & Talk initiative seems a ways off, at least in the U.S. Currently in North America our nine airlines partners have no interest in enabling voice calls because of the social stigma that it ultimately introduces.” (USA Today, 2013).
While this is great news and certainly an advancement for cell phone usage in the sky, Voxer has been enabling people to send voice, text, and image messages since 2008 when commercial in-flight WiFi was introduced. With Voxer, you can already have quick voice conversations over a WiFi network. Plus, because Voxer is short voice messages, it’s much less intrusive for your fellow passengers than a full phone conversation.
So long as you are using air WiFi, you can send and receive voxes, text, or send photos while in-flight. Use Voxer’s push-to-talk messaging technology to alert your friend picking you up at the airport that your flight is on time and landing soon, plan out details of your trip with your friends, or just use Voxer to kill time while flying and catch up with friends and family.
As we like to say, welcome to the next generation of push-to-talk. We’ll see you in the skies.