Baku, Azerbaijan Nov. 5
By Huseyn Valiyev - Trend: Azerbaijani mobile operator Azerfon LLC (Nar Mobile trademark) has deployed Internet services on board of the planes of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), the airline told Trend on Tuesday.
The company said the data transmission service is available on board of nine airliners of the company. The passengers, in addition to the use of voice services and SMS and MMS, can read news, check e-mail, communicate on social networks and so on.
Nar Air tariff plan is available for subscribers of Nar Mobile network. The price of a minute of incoming and outgoing calls on board of aircraft is two manats. Sending an SMS costs 0.50 manats (incoming SMS - free). The cost of sending an MMS is 2.6 manats, and one megabyte GPRS costs nine manats.
"Tariff reductions for this type of service are not provided for in the near future. However, the company is preparing the New Year campaigns for AZAL's passengers, who are also subscribers of Nar Mobile," the company said.
In 2014, voice and Internet services will be available on all planes of Azerbaijan Airlines.
Azerfon has a 10-year exclusive agreement with AZAL to provide mobile communication services on the company's planes.
Mobile communication on planes is operated by a single ground station in Europe, the OnAir company, based in Amsterdam.
Base mini-stations were installed on board of the planes. These mini-stations turn on as soon as the plane reaches a height of 4,000 meters. These stations send a signal to the ground with the help of a satellite, and from the ground the signal is sent directly to the network of Azerfon. Communication is automatically turned off during landing and takeoff.
The official exchange rate on Nov. 5 is 0.7843 AZN/USD.