The CEO of master agency PlanetOne Communications is donning his running shoes for a personal cause. On Jan. 9, Ted Schuman will take part in the 26.2-mile P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon in honor of his nephew, Adam Schnall, who died from leukemia at age 9.

“[F]or anyone who has seen life taken away from a beautiful young child … it is devastating to say the least,” Schuman wrote in a fund-raising e-mail. Schuman hopes to “do something positive” in Adam’s memory by helping raise money for a foundation established by Adam’s parents.

The foundation sends qualified underprivileged children to the Phoenix Suns Basketball Camp.

Children who receive the award must be doing well in school, Schuman says. Schuman is raising money through his personal Web page (

www.justgiving.com/pfp/adamschnall

), and by press time, had raised approximately 75 percent of the projected $10,000 goal.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Soon, airline passengers should be able to make in-flight calls from their personal mobile phones, paying international roaming rates comparable to those made while standing on firm ground.

ARINC Inc. and Norway-based service provider The Telenor Group have unveiled a system that uses the Inmarsat satellite equipment found on most long-range aircraft and the installation of a small ‘picocell’ system in the cabin that lets airline passengers place and receive calls on their GSM mobile phones.

The two companies say the ARINC/Telenor Mobile Connectivity system is expected to sell for less than $100,000 per aircraft. They are offering airlines an installation and implementation package that includes transparent billing services to passengers’ regular mobile accounts.

“We have passed all the technology and pricing hurdles” says Graham Lake, ARINC vice president and managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “The remaining challenges to in-flight mobile phone service are basically regulatory in nature.”

“The ’96 Act is so ’90s.”

Walter B. McCormick Jr., president and CEO of USTA, in a press briefing at TELECOM 04, noting the Telecommunication Act of 1996 dealt with problems that don’t exist today in the marketplace. New rules, he says, should have one aim: “Where the consumer has a choice, government gets out of the way”

Alternate Channel