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Cell Phones on Commercial Flights by 2006?
NetCurl writes "I heard the news on MPR's Marketplace today. Apparently the non-profit Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics is studying the effects of wireless and other portable communications devices on commercial airliners. I've already noticed that a couple airlines have loosened requirements on when you can use your cell phone on the ground. Is the next step wireless access in the cabin, and loud cell phone chatter in the skies over the mid-west?"
Although the airlines, and the FAA might end up not carring about cell phones in use while in flight, the cellular carriers certainly will.
The whole concept that allows cell phones to work (that the signal strength at distant cells will be much weaker) only works when all of the phones are close to the surface of the earth. When the users are above the surface significantly, the relative distance between the user and multiple cells isn't very much.
A single user in a airplane making a cell call could easily consume the resources that a few hundred users would on the ground.
Filling the sky with people talking on cell phones could easily render most cell networks nearly useless.
However on an aircraft it'd not be feasible to separate the seating in such a way so many people will just get annoyed listening to people on the phone as well as the annoying ringtones going off all the time.
I'm a RF Engineer for a major US PCS carrier.
There's no way that our network (nor anyone else's) would be able to handle calls reliably from an airplane.
Our cells typically only cover 3-5 miles in an urban area, and 20 in a rural one. As fast as a plane travels, you'll be changing sites very quickly.
Add to that the fact that our network is designed and optimized for ground level users, and you're looking at a crappy call, assuming you can even orginate one.
IMO, a possible better solution would be a micro-cell installed on the plane that would multiplex the calls back to the PSTN.
Yes, I realize calls were made on 9/11. I realized that it's practically possible. How long did those calls last? How was the voice quality? How well (if at all) did those calls hand off to the next cell site?
And to answer your second question, yes, our antennas and towers work mainly on a line of sight basis. Buy why on earth would we aim our antennas up? You really think that we use an omni-directional antenna? Heck no, all of our antennas are high gain, direction antennas, pointed horizontally, or downtilted to further aim them earthward.
Being 50k feet above a cell site, and you're going to have shit signal, and it's not going to last very long at all.
French TGVs allow cell phone use (one of the many advantages over planes in France), but not in your seat.
There is a small area between wagons where you can use cell phones and talk without disturbing others. Not difficult to implement in a plane, as long as the technology works...
The restriction against using cell phones aboard aircraft is not an FAA rule, it's an FCC rule. When a cell phone was used at ground level or in a building there was no problem, but using a phone at 6 miles up was causing problems with the tremendous range of transmission.
From that altitude the phones were bypassing the protocols that keep the phone talking to only one tower at a time and was causing connection problems for both the user of the phone on the plane, and others on remote cell phones on the ground.
Perhaps the cell phone industry has solved these issues with the conversion to digital, I don't know for sure. But unless these problems have been solved the FCC is unlikely to allow cell phone use from aircraft, baloons or any other "high altitude" craft.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
First off, the primary reason for the use of cell phones in an aircraft being a felony is because it royally screws with the cell networks. Thus the FCC has banned it.
Second, it's quite apparent that you don't know jack shit about airplanes and you shouldn't have opened your mouth.
To "upgrade" ILS (there are many other nav aid types for approaches by the way) to frequency hop would require the THOUSANDS of aircraft to change their radios. At $4-5,000 per radio (imagine how much that would go up for freq. hopping), Joe Airplane-Owner is NOT going to be happy with that.
Another point, Nav aids and cell phones aren't even close to the same frequency, so frequency hopping wouldn't help anyway. Not to mention the dangers of frequency hopping.
Why is interference dangerous on an (for sake of example) ILS CAT III approach? Because (we'll assume a smallish airliner) the airplane needs to fly through a "hole" that is roughly 70 feet wide and 20 feet high. This needs to be done in an airplane weighing 100 tons or more and moving at about 150 mph. You don't want that signal to twitch at all.
Finally, your closing, and monumentally retarded statement about "grab the big dealy between your legs and look out the shiny thing infront of you". First, airliners don't have a stick between your legs, it's either a yoke infront of you or a stick to the side. Second, if you're in the clouds, looking out the front isn't going to do you a damn bit of good now is it?
Uh, what about the woman who called her husband, collect no less, from the "hijacked" plane to announce what was "happening". I believe her name was Olsen. Now, the collect call bit is vital info, cause the airline phones do not make collect calls.
So, perhaps we should have this consortium talk to the white house about how to enable Cell calls, since the airlines have already done so apparently...
Perhaps they can also explain how Box cutters got onto the plane since they were banned items since 1991. I guess that's why the airlines were exempt from prosecution from allowing box cutters onto planes.
Actually yes they can hear me in the car if I talk normally. People need to understand that on phones and two way radios... even if there is tons of noise in the background.. just talk normally, there is no reason to scream! The mic is only several mm from your mouth so it will pick you up just fine!