Today
OnAir the company behind inflight GSM phone call and data services got the official go ahead from the
European Aviation Safety Association (EASA). The Geneva-based company is a joint venture of well-known companies SITA and Airbus.
The GSM picocell network is coming from
IPaccess (installed by Siemens) as far as I know, which belongs to Motorola now. Whether this system/service will take off is not clear though. A similar service Connexion run by Boeing was shut down after investing billions of US dollars.
What I think could be in OnAir's favor though is that they are running on a lower budget, which at least seems to be a wiser approach here, allowing the service to grow with customer installations.
The link back to earth is done via a satellite communication service from Inmarsat over a Thales system. On the ground, Monaco Telecom is doing the link to the Internet, so it really is a true global system. It will first be available on Airbus A318 short-haul planes, and the following airlines have signed on so far: Air France, bmi, Ryanair (on their Boeing-737 fleet), TAP.
Don't expect high-speed data though. 80 passengers have to share - worst case - a 864kbps link.
