So Voip is still data streams! Why block it? Internet not being used to its full potential.

Sadism at work? You bet.

Paris, 'cos she would also love to have a voip chat with soemone instead of putting up with lack of inflite service.

Seriously... Methinks you must be a masochist... You really want this?:

Hello? HELLO? Can you hear me now?!? How about now?!? Yeah, I'm flying dude! Seriously, I'm like over the Grand Canyon or something... Yeah. No dude, these stewardesses are fugly dude! I thought they had to be hot to be stewardesses. Nah dude, totally psyched!!! Yeah, Vegas is going to be off the hook!!! YUP YUP!!! What? Nah dude, we gotta get wasted when I get there dude!

Or better yet!

"Say hi to Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Hi Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Tell her we're on a plane!! That's right, we're on a plane!! Tell Gramma we're on a plane to come see her! Tell Gramma! Say hi to Gramma! Say I love you Gramma! No don't touch that! Wait, don't touch the laptop honey! Say hi to Gramma!"

Mine's the one with the earplugs in the pocket.

Next time I fly domestic, I'll take off one of my wingtips, stick one of the laces in the earphone jack, and bend over, talking earnestly into the heel.

Do you think they'll say anything?

Fuck that; how about a goddamn' in-flight MEAL? How about six more inches of legroom? How about not being treated like friggin' CATTLE?

In-flight broadband? P'whah, fuckit.

Won't all those CAT6 Cables trailing along the floor of the aisles back to the switch in the galley area make an awful untidy mess in the plane? It would probably make moving the Drinks trolleys difficult too.

Tunneling? Yeah, I've heard of it. The goddamn' airlines have been doing that to us for _years_.

on Ryan Air you get a free blowjob in business class.

Or so I heard...

The reason they don't want people doing VoIP is because, due to its real-time nature, the packets can't be buffered like web browsing, email, FTP, video, etc packets are routinely. (That's also why VoIP is UDP not TCP.) Thus it is an incredible bandwidth hog - worse than anything given the paltry amount of data that is actually being exchanged.

Paris - because all of the previous posters are as stupid as she is.

But it seems you haven't read the article to the end... The flight crew will be on the lookout for people talking to their laptops, or themselves, or whatever. Can you tunnel that too?

And do they offer broadband on black helicopters too?

Now there is no excuse for people to be away from Facebook, they can update their status to "mid-flight turbulance".

Well done Aircell, this is the greatest thing since the internet was invented (bar The Register of course!)

I heard Ryan Air sucks as well.