As a frequent flier, road warrior, now a regular international traveler and just someone who is by nature globally nomadic, the idea of Voice in the Sky is something that is very appealing to me.
PC World’s VoIP Blogger, Kathryn Vercello, asks the question if we think it will fly in her post of Friday.
Back in the day, all of 2006, I was a regular user of Boeings Connexion service on Lufthansa. I usually flew business or first class, with other business travelers, so making or taking a Skype or Gizmo Project call at 37,000 feet didn’t seem to offend anyone, and tended to be a great conversation starter. No one really objected. Some thought it was neat. Some asked how I was doing it. No one gave me any indication that they thought what I was doing was objectionable, which is why I think it all comes down though to decorum.
Kathryn references the concept of the “Chatty Cathy” something I experienced not with someone in business class, but on a recent Southwest flight where two people flew behind me and had never met before had the uncanny ability to talk about nothing the entire flight, causing the passenger next to me to wonder if we had chosen the wrong seats. That got me thinking how their non-stop diatribe was any different than someone on a cell phone. Well I couldn’t come up with an answer that was good enough to say “shut up” so unless the airlines want to ban talking on planes, as broadband flies, so too should talking over VoIP.
Now, for those who don’t want to talk and fly, my feeling is there is the need to establish “quiet zones” which would be where people could contemplate their thoughts, close there eyes and sleep in peace. This is what I have found works very well on the Eurostar, on TGV trains and even on the rapid 15 minute Heathrow Express train that has WiFi. To me that would be the best model that would let the talkers talk, and the quiet types have silence…..