Hello from 30,000 feet

I sent a couple of emails while on the flight home from LA to Sydney ! If I had my email interface to my blog set up, I would have written a blog entry directly !

The email system is actually provisioned by the new SMS facility on Qantas international flights (business and first class only I think)
utilising an SMS to email gateway.

Data entry is done by the in-seat phone handset – just like you would from a mobile – and as such is extremely painful (entering email addresses is significantly more difficult than typing simple messages – punctuation is a chore).

You can even have people reply to your SMS or email messages ! I sent an email to my Dad, and he replied a couple of hours later waking me up ! You get that.

Normal price is US$1.90 for sending or receiving each SMS message (you pay to receive as well) – but Qantas have are letting people trial it for free during September and October.

You can make phone and data calls as well – currently US$3.90 per minute until the end of the year, normally US$6 per minute. A little pricey – but when the online craving hits, you gotta itch ! Not sure what speed the data calls are.

Now, how can I justify charging the corporate Amex card and claiming it as a valid business expense I wonder ? :D

Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 07:43:17 +0000 (added by Postmaster@gmsmail.com)
From: sim’ hampel <3417217K2JWY5X@testgms.aircom.aero>
Subject: hello from 30k feet

Yay email in flight! Hello from QF12 LAX-SYD.

Message sent from a passenger onboard a Qantas flight

Reply SMTP Comment – Limit your reply to 100 characters.

LOCATION: Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, west of Los Angeles, USA
LOCAL TIME: 11:45pm, Saturday 13th Sept (LA time)