You can also make calls on the plane. China Telecom’s “satellite + VoWiFi” technology has made a major breakthrough in the aviation scene.

According to the official public account of China Telecom Satellite,Recently, the subject acceptance of the joint innovation project between the two parties - "In-flight Network Platform VoWiFi Project" was conducted in Air China's ground-based onboard simulation environment.Based on a simulation environment that is completely consistent with that of civil aviation aircraft,Ordinary mobile phone terminals can realize functions such as mobile phone authentication, three-network voice, text message interoperability, and video calls through the in-flight Internet environment in flight mode. The test results are in line with expectations. The user experience is consistent with the ground 5G network and has excellent results.

This marks a major technological breakthrough in the innovative application of "satellite + VoWiFi" satellite-ground integration technology in aviation scenarios. It is also an important scenario-based application implementation of China Telecom's "satellite +" product system to empower land, sea, air and space.

According to reports, aviation VoWiFi, the abbreviation of VoiceoverWiFi, refers to a service that uses WiFi hotspots provided in the aircraft cabin and adopts international standard software protocols to replace traditional mobile phone wireless base stations after passengers activate mobile phone services to achieve the same basic carrier-class services such as voice and text messages as the ground network experience.

At present, my country's civil aviation requires passengers to keep their mobile phones in flight mode during the flight to ensure flight safety. Mobile phones can access the Internet through the in-cabin Wi-Fi network on aircraft with Internet capabilities, but they cannot make calls or send text messages.

Aviation VoWiFi can solve such communication needs of passengers, making it possible to make and receive calls and send and receive text messages during the flight, truly extending the user's usage habits on the ground to an altitude of 10,000 meters.

It is worth noting that this technology does not require airlines to install any additional hardware on the aircraft, and passengers do not need to change their mobile phones or download apps. They only need a system upgrade to directly use aviation VoWiFi services through China Telecom’s 5G package.