There have been a flurry of blog posts in the last few about Andy Abramson's recent success in using Phweet's Flash VoIP approach to conduct a call over Aircell WiFi to a friend on an airborne plane. There's a bit of indignation from some fronts (how dare they block my phone call) to questions of manners (do we want the cell phone bad manners syndrome to extend into the airplane) to some rather stupid explanations from Aircell and the airlines.

If you really want to understand how this traffic might, or might not be blocked, my friend Dan York wrote a comprehensive and thoughtful explanation on why you can probably use it -

The reason why (probably) you can use Phweet on a plane when Skype is blocked
Update #1: Since publishing this post this morning, I've learned of David Berlind's success using AOL's video chat from the plane. Odds are that it works for a similar reason to what I outline for Phweet below (and that eventually it will be blocked).

Update #2: As expected, GigaOm is now reporting that Aircell is blocking the Tringme VoIP client used by Phweet.

So how did Andy Abramson make a call using Phweet on the new Aircell Gogo Internet service on American Airlines planes? Why was the call not blocked like Skype or Sightspeed calls were?

As I discussed in my last post, VoIP calls have certain network characteristics that make them easy to identify and, in Aircell's case, block. A VoIP call starts up... a stream of typically 100 packets per second start streaming over UDP between two endpoints... the networking monitoring software notices this, watches it for several seconds, decides it's VoIP, and blocks the stream.
[Read Dan's full post]

Dan also posted How Aircell is (probably) blocking VoIP phone calls on planes (hint... VoIP Whack-A-Mole) describing how Aircell is probably blocking things.

As Dan says, this will probably work. But there are no guarantees other than that you'll be violating the airline policy to not permit voice calls over the network connection. I'll argue it can be blocked more easily that we're speculating.

Andy openly talks about how easy it was to make the call as a non-hacker type person. He's right in all his thoughts, and they support VoIP's position as a mainstream technology that isn't just for geeks any more.

At the packet level, Dan's point are well taken, but I'm convinced that via DNS or IP blocking and some minor signature pattern checks on the calls, Phweet could be surgically blocked. All it takes is some technical skill and diligence. Why block the call? Block the hyperlink to the Phweet server right at the Twitter link and the acll can be effectively killed. That's a non-hack, security gu viewpoint simply looking at how would I quickly isolate unwanted traffic.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, or that it's appropriate. I'm a friend and fan of the founders of Phweet. I think it proves a point I've been making for a long time about VoIP. I think it takes us a step closer to real Communications Enhanced Business Processes (CEBP). I think it's a great thing from a technology integration viewpoint.

Yesterday I posted my own questions about the manners and etiquette side of the question. That remains open. How many people still smoke on a plane against airline policy. I think it's a problem that begs a solution, but I don't think VoIP gone wild like cell phones have is an acceptable answer.

This is a fascinating conversation to watch unfold and I encourage you all to follow along. It's shaping how voice services (beyond VoIP) will be controlled and made available in our future.