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Wireless Computing and Airplanes?
Echemus writes "The Register has an article speculating whether the fact more and more devices have WiFi/GSM facilities built in will cause Airlines to ban all computing equipment and its like from the cabin. Airlines are ultra-paranoid about cell phones, but is that paranoia justified?"
As far as WiFi goes, it seems like the airline industry is already planning on providing WiFi internet access on the plane. See this Yahoo business article. cached by Google.
Relevant quote:
And travelers may soon get WiFi while on the airplane, if recent trials in Europe and the United States are successful
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Airlines are not afraid of cellphones -- the FCC is. Cellphones work because they can hit a handful of cells, which decide between them which cell to use to handle the phone's traffic. A cellphone in the air can hit dozens (over Los Angeles, hundreds) of cells at once, causing the cell system to melt down.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
There is no way in hell I am going to check a laptop. Last year, one of the baggage handlers at LAX broke open my bag and stole some stuff out of it. American Airlines basically told me "Too bad."
" ...But has anyone actually gotten a signal while flying around in one of those big tin cans? "
Sure...at least on a Blackberry device. Usually if you're sitting by the window, and are over a LARGE city (i.e. there are LOTS of towers below you), you can get enough of a signal to send/receive messages. Darn thing's gotta be up in the window, though! This happens even at altitude...20,000 feet +.
AFAIUI, radio spectrum is supposed to be allocated in such a way that interference does not affect critical bands. There's a regulatory body to do it. In the past, before this became an issue, there were a lot of electronic gadgets that produced quite large broadband interference. Look at early home computers with plastic cases - you could get several volts of signal from some of them just by holding an oscilloscope probe over the case. Then people starting using serious shielding so that only the wanted frequencies got out.
The actual signal levels from Bluetooth, 802.11 etc. are all pretty low and they are in standards-designated bands.
So exactly what is the issue? Does it have, as I suspect, a lot more to do with the convenience of the cabin crew and the airline than the passengers?
Aircraft survive lightning strike. They are locked onto by powerful radar stations. They have transmitters many times more powerful than cell phones. But, seemingly, all terrorists need to do is to keep their cellphones turned on. doh.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It is pretty obvious that the use of cell phones on planes is possible, without adverse effects on the airplane. Maybe there is some trouble with the ground stations, as a previous poster pointed out, but do you know who else bans cell phones? Greyhound and the other bus lines, and they don't pretend there is a technical reason for it.
Can you imagine being on a plane full of people talking on their phones non-stop? Or even just having to sit next to someone gossiping their head off for an entire 3 hour flight?
The airlines ban cell phones for the comfort of their passengers, and I'm glad they do.
I'm at a loss as to how a comment this absurd could be modded to insightful.
IF wifi and other broadcast devices are deemed dangerous because of interference, then they need to be completely banned from the cockpit.
Suggesting it now falls upon a crew who should be flying the plane to scan for wireless devices is ridiculous.
Say I leave my 'puter off until I'm onboard and the flight is underway. Do you expect them to do constant scanning, and then devote crew time (or flight attendant time, as if these folks are already stretched serviing an entire flight deck of people) to search for WHICH seat is broadcasting? Then, if I've put my computer back in the bag but left it on, they have to do a bag and pocket search in a limited area to try to determine WHAT device (cell phone, blue tooth, wifi laptop, PDA) is sending the signal out, then turn it off?
Come on mods. Use half a brain.
IF this stuff is truly interefering then there is NO reason to allow people to carry it onto the plane with them. Let the few people who think they deserve special treatment or have documents that need to be in their possesion at all times charter their own flight.
A CD player affecting modern avionics? Oh, please...
I'm an electronics engineering tech, and I used to work for Boeing. I've seen how the 'black boxes' are put together, and how they're installed in the jets. They're heavily shielded against stray interference, both by their own grounded metal housing and by the fact that every single non-coaxial wire going into the thing goes through at least a bypass capacitor, if not the cap and a ferrite bead, before it ever hits its destination.
Don't even get me started on how many of those wire bundles have shield braid over the inner conductors.
Couple that with the fact that there's a solid metal floor between the 'people' area and the avionics bay, AND the fact that the boxes are all mounted in a grounded rack, and I have a lot of trouble believing that a CD player could so much as create an electronic hiccup in anything more than the headphones of the person using it. If it did, then there was something seriously wrong with the plane's avionics to begin with.
Show me independently-verified lab results that a CD player (or anything else in the cellphone or PDA category) can freak out fully functional and properly installed avionics, and I will cheerfully STFU. Until then, I would consider such a story to be in the same category as the Weekly World News reporting that Edgar Cayce had been reincarnated as a psychic fly.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Here's the straight scoop. As the article says, airline people can't tell if your radio/phone/computer are transmitting any RF, let alone bad RF. Maybe a special FCC approval stamp on each device to OK it for airline use? It's not even near practical for the airlines to inspect all our gadgets before we get on the plane. And what if I *made my own gadget* (don't laugh, many HAMs still make their own radios)? I don't know nearly enough about EMI/RFI shielding and proper design techniques to insure that any gadget I make won't bring down a plane.
Yep, we're lookin at an nearly complete ban, unless the airplane manufacturers can certify their design to be EMI/RFI proof.
Cell phones are only banned so the airlines can charge you a ridiculous amount of money to use the stupid sky phone. It's such a scam.
Actually, both the FCC and FAA ban cell-phones in flight, but for different reasons:
1: FCC bans cell phones in flight because the altitude and speed of an airplane would cause the cell phone to be reserving bandwidth on many cells, thus vastly diminishing capacity. Also depending on the anti-fraud measures in place, it may prevent the cell phone companies from charging (depends on how sensitive the sanity checking is). The billing problem could be easily solved, but the capacity problem is inherent to the system.
2: FAA bans cell phones because of the remote *possibility* of frequency leakage off the devices which could interfere with the communications systems of the aircraft. If you have ever seen an electric shaver interfere with your FM radio, you know what I mean. For good reason, the FAA tends to be very paranoid about these things.
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