WirelessCabin: Use Your Mobile Phone on Airplanes

securitas writes "What if didn't have to turn off your mobile phone when you travel by air? eWEEK's Matthew Broersma reports on a European Commission project to enable mobile phone use on airplanes. The technology works by creating short-range 'picocells' that force transmission output power to drop to 1/1000th of normal, reducing electronic interference, then using a satellite uplink. The WirelessCabin project members include the German Aerospace Centre, Siemens, Ericsson and Airbus. Initial trials will use 'GSM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections' but will add CDMA and 3G standards. WirelessCabin is already making a picocell with CDMA2000. The first demonstrations are scheduled for this summer on Lufthansa long-haul flights with the A340-600 jet."

Comments

Sky high rates?

[LostCluster]

The only thing is, you might as well use the back-of-seat AirPhones to get to that satellite trnasponder rather than your own phone and the picocell...

I get the feeling that even if this allows you to use your cell phone like normal, you're going to be considered to be on a "roaming tower" as far as your cell phone company is concerned because your cell phone company won't own the picocell. Therefore, forget about using your unlimited night and weekend minutes on these flights, you'll be still paying the same through-the-nose rates for plane-to-ground communications.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

Therefore, forget about using your unlimited night and weekend minutes on these flights, you'll be still paying the same through-the-nose rates for plane-to-ground communications.

Do cell phones actually interfere with airliners anyway? I mean c'mon -- are the systems onboard a modern aircraft really so fragile that my cell phone will bother them? Of course I always turn my phone off anyway because I don't want to be arrested and wind up in Cuba but still...

Of course I do recall that with my old Nextel (i700 plus -- that phone was a beast) I could tell when a call was incoming before the ringer went off because it would interfere with nearby speakers. I've never seen a cell phone other then that one (and I've used lots of different cell phones) interfere with anything though.

Re:Sky high rates?

[adamofgreyskull]

That probably puts paid to my question:

Could one chase the off-peakedness across time-zones? :o)

Re:Sky high rates?

[xSquaredAdmin]

I could tell when a call was incoming before the ringer went off because it would interfere with nearby speakers.

Did the conversation get amplified by the speakers too? That could get interesting.

"So, Bob, is that syphilis cleared up yet?"

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things:

1) When you're on the ground and your call drops because some jackass on an airplane owns the same cell you are on then you might care.

2) When the only time you can get 3 hours of peace is on a flight from X to Y and you have to sit next to Joe on the phone to his secretary talking about the meeting he has five days from now (which he could call and talk to her about tomorrow) you might care.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

Did the conversation get amplified by the speakers too? That could get interesting.

No, it just made little static bursts on speakers (even if they weren't being used -- it would make static bursts on speakerphones that were on-hook -- all they needed was to be powered) near the cell phone. I always assumed it was the cell phone transmitting it's data packets back to the network. It was really interesting to use in the car with the surround-sound system I had. It gave my friends pause about using my cell phone ("Your going to put that right next to your brain?").

To this day I hate Nextel (billing problems that I've talked about elsewhere) but the i700plus was a true beast of a phone. It was supposedly mil-spec rated for shock and vibration resistance. That phone was indestructible.

Re:Sky high rates?

[thpdg]

Possibly not. You may see the big wireless companies start to offer packages with airline roaming. How hard would it be for Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, Virgin, etc to work with the airlines. Designated amounts of airline minutes with calling plans, etc. Mobile to Mobile calling is this month's gimmick, let's see what this brings around. There could be bonuses for loyalty to an airline, as well.
I'm not so much a fan of cell phone use, but I would love to see a Wi-Fi access point on the plane, to get some easy broadband access.

Re:Sky high rates?

[adam mcmaster]

Do cell phones actually interfere with airliners anyway? I mean c'mon -- are the systems onboard a modern aircraft really so fragile that my cell phone will bother them?

There's an article in this month's Wired that talks about this. Basically, no it wouldn't cause a problem.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

When you're on the ground and your call drops because some jackass on an airplane owns the same cell you are on then you might care.

Why would roaming between cells on an aircraft be any different then roaming between cells while driving? Do I kick people off their calls if I switch to a new tower when I drive behind a building? Somehow I doubt it -- the cell networks are designed with roaming in mind.

When the only time you can get 3 hours of peace is on a flight from X to Y and you have to sit next to Joe on the phone to his secretary talking about the meeting he has five days from now (which he could call and talk to her about tomorrow) you might care.

That's a physiological problem not a technical problem. My question was is there any technical reason why cell phones won't work from airplanes? They obviously do work -- some of the people on the hijacked planes during 9/11 called out on them -- yet the FAA won't let you use them because they might 'interfere'. Is this founded or just paranoia?

Re:Sky high rates?

[nkh]

Completely off-topic but my Siemens S35 has the wonderful ability to interfere with my speakers AND my monitor when a call is incoming. Strange thing is the phone never interferes when it's emitting (instead of receiving)...
/me remembers electromagnetism lessons at the university!

Re:Sky high rates?

[bofkentucky]

Nokia 5160 (TDMA) will cause pops and rattles in my speakers and distort my crappy old 15" monitor at home, my 19" monitor at work seems to be immune to the interference tough. SMS messages seem to be worse about distortion than incomming calls as well.

Re:Sky high rates?

[whovian]

There were some archived posts to /. on this that I read recently. the upshot was that modern planes wouldn't suffer interference, but older planes would. The easier solution when dealing with the public at large was simply to ban all passengers from using them on all flights until the airlines could be sure none of the older planes was in use.

Can't find the post. Maybe s/b else can.

Re:Sky high rates?

[stephanruby]

Do cell phones actually interfere with airliners anyway?

No, they interfere with cell towers, that's the problem. The plane is going so fast that the cell phone keeps on switching towers.

Re:Sky high rates?

[vk2]

Well I guess the sales managers at the big companies are already planing "Air Minutes".

Re:Sky high rates?

[imsabbel]

Well, thats easy.
After the initial handshake the sending power is reduced to a minimum needed to keep contact to the corresponding cell, and in most situations thats 1/10th or so of the peak transmission power.
So while the initial handshake will cause interferences (most likely short bursts of noice, in 1 second periods), later the power is to little.

Re:Sky high rates?

[goates]

You can also be in range of more than one or two towers at a time as well. Either way, the cell networks have trouble with it.

goates

Re:Sky high rates?

[DebianRcksLindowsLie]

If it means no roaming I'm all for it!

Re:Sky high rates?

[sir_cello]

I wish I could remember the reference, but I read recently that supposedly the main issue with mobile phones on flights is the way they splatter themselves across cells on the ground. The article acknowledged that there have been many examples of people accidently leaving phones on during flights.

Personally, I've left a GSM phone on during a flight once.

Additionally, as an engineer, I would be _extremely_ suprised if the GSM standards bodies and the FCC/licensing authorities actually permitted the GSM technology to be made available to the public if there were any chance that it would interfere with navigation systems or any other critical systems (medical equivalent). We would have a string of news articles about plane crashes if this were the case. This simply doesn't happen for massively deployed technologies because it goes through all of these regulatory hurdles. I guess you could have an issue with equipment from other less rigorous countries, which may be the main point.

Equally, I've accidently travelled on a post 9/11 cross-european flight with a pocketknife keyring. I realised when I was in the air that it was in my carry on "man bag": this was after I waited one hour at Stansted to make my way through supposedly tight security. I wanted to take an in-flight photograph to prove it, yet worried that attendant would see me and I'd be meeting the boys in blue at the other end.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Broadcasting from a plane is bad from a network point of view because you light up sveral hundred cells at a time. Since you are above them with clear line of sight your signal travels much farther than normal. Most of the time is traveld further than the frequency reuse distance, meaning that you just trashed the capacity of the cellular system.

And yes, it is possible for Cell phones to affect accuracy of onboard instuments in older planes... There is NO GROUND PLANE on an aircraft. You are sitting a nice big faraday cage... so the onlything to absorb your signal is the equipment around you.

From a practical standpoint I would prefer rules that ban Cells on aircraft for comfort reasons... an aircraft is close personal quarters... I really don't want to hear your conversation on a long flight... (AIRRAGE!)

Re:Sky high rates?

[hpa]

It won't cause a problem if the cell phone is working properly. The thing people are worried about (for valid or invalid reasons) are what happens if the cell phone is broken and starts transmitting (or have subcarriers or harmonics) on air traffic control or guidance frequencies. The likelihood is small, but it's likely to happen in the most critical moments of flight.

Note that the subcarriers/harmonics problems isn't limited to intentional radiators (transmitters.)

Re:Sky high rates?

[Nspace13]

For a while, I would be driving in my car and here this little interference like beepy-beepy-beep-beep-beepy sound come from my stereo. Then the other day I had my cell phone sitting by a CD player in my room and the same noise came out of the CD player. I had no idea it was connected to my cell phone until I did some testing by leaving my phone near the CD player in my room fairly often when it was on. The noise only returns when the cell phone is near the stereo. It doesn't ring or anything, it just seems to randomly interfere. Anyone know what could be going on? My cell phone is a Nokia 6190 and I'm on the T-Mobil network.

Re:Sky high rates?

[sjb2016]

I read somewhere, maybe here on Slashdot, that there are systems that are that "fragile" and or susceptible to electronic interference, including even some CD players and computers. However, during cruising there isn't too much going on in the cockpit so the pilots can easily work around any interference, however, it's at take off and landing where there is so much going on that they would rather not risk it, so no electronic equipment during those times. Again, that's just what I hear.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I do recall that with my old Nextel (i700 plus -- that phone was a beast) I could tell when a call was incoming before the ringer went off because it would interfere with nearby speakers.

Airplane navigation equipment is one hell of a lot more sensitive than speakers. So how in the heck do you know that your phones (even your newer ones) won't interfere? Answer: you don't.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Fjord]

My girlfriend's cell phone will cause speakers do make a dit-dit-dit noise if it is near them. My roommate's cell phone will often project his voice onto the inhouse speaker system. Cell phones use a very powerful signal to reach those towers, much more powerful than should be beside your head. It's the main reason I use PCS.

Re:Sky high rates?

[luckyguesser]

When the only time you can get 3 hours of peace is on a flight from X to Y and you have to sit next to Joe on the phone to his secretary talking about the meeting he has five days from now (which he could call and talk to her about tomorrow) you might care.
You say that as if it would be peaceful without cell phones! Hah! The little kid behind you doesn't care whether or not he/she could drive the most steel-nerved adult crazy within the course of a couple hours (or maybe it's the parent who refuses to do nothing to calm the child), he/she'll do it anyway!
My point is, airplanes are NOT theaters, no matter how much the people who need sleep wish it could be. The funniest thing I have ever heard in my life (and I hear it a lot) is, "I don't have to sleep now, I'll sleep on the plane."

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

"So, Bob, is that syphilis cleared up yet?"

Laugh, I heard somebody in a restaurant having this conversation once (of course I could only hear one side of it -- bet it would have been twice as funny with Nextel two-way):

"Did the results come back yet?"
"WHAT???? HERPES???? THAT F-ING BITCH!"
"AWWW MAN! That REALLY sucks!"
"That bitch! No man I used a condom! That slut!"
"Whatta gonna do?"
"YEAH THAT'LL TEACH HER! Stupid bimbo!"

The sad thing is that this conversation was in the middle of a busy pizzeria at lunch hour and this guy didn't seem to care (or he is really that dense) that everybody in a 50' radius could hear this conversation.

Of course on the off topic (non cellphone) arena my deepest fear has always been having a conversation with a friend in a bar and having the music stop at just the wrong moment:

"YEAH I GOT THE TEST RESULTS BACK...." [music stops] "IT'S HERPES" [looks around the room wondering why everybody is looking at him]

Re:Sky high rates?

[damiangerous]

Of course I do recall that with my old Nextel (i700 plus -- that phone was a beast) I could tell when a call was incoming before the ringer went off because it would interfere with nearby speakers. I've never seen a cell phone other then that one (and I've used lots of different cell phones) interfere with anything though.

My last phone, a Motorola T193 (the worst phone I've ever seen), would routinely interfere with my speakers. If I left it on my desk within a foot or two of the speakers I would get a buzz a couple times an hour, periodic handshakes, I'm assuming. It also would interfere continuously while it was in use.

Re:Sky high rates?

[gstoddart]

Well, as far as I understand, they don't really know what the effect might be, but there is a fair amount of commonality between the frequencies.

When it comes to planes, anything unknown is considered as bad. Since if something bad happens, people die.

Anecdotally, I was on a plane once and the idiot in the seat next to me turned on his cell to check his text messages. Immediately all of the tv screens went fuzzy, and within a *very* short period of time the cabin crew arrived and politely (but very firmly) made him turn off his phone.

So if the TVs go wonky, one can only guess the far more important electronics on the plane might also be affected.

Re:Sky high rates?

[jjhall]

Yep. Periodic handshakes going on between your phone and the cell network.

Cell1: Hey, Bob's phone, are you still there.
Phone: Yeppers. Read you loud and clear.
Cell2: Can you hear me?
Phone: Yes, I hear you too.
Cell2: OK, just wanted to make sure.
Phone: Just send me a call if it comes in.
Cell1: Roger.
Cell2: Ditto.

Obviously that is not the technical terms for what is going on, but it seemed a little more humerous.

The importance of this is when you call someone whose phone is turned off, a lot of times it will say "Please wait while the (insert carrier name here) subscriber you have dialed is located." If the phone just went through the handshake, then the network thinks it is still there. It will try several times to find it if not. After 10 seconds or so it will go to voice mail. If the phone has been off during several handshakes, the network knows it can't complete the call and it goes right to voicemail. If you are traveling at a high speed through an area with high cell density, you can actually move between several towers between the handshakes, and that will cause the delays as well before being connected.

This is also the reason paranoid people don't keep their phones on. The network knows the general location of every cell phone user at most any given time.

I know for a fact that TDMA and GSM with AT&T, as well as iDen with Nextel, and CDMA with Verizon all exhibit the periodic handshake with the associated interference. Since T-Mobile and AT&T use the same GSM network band, there is no difference between the two. Now if only they would establish a roaming agreement with each other...

Jeremy

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you get too worried, consider than walkie-talkies have been used by cops, workmen, ham radio ops, etc for many decades, and any of those put out a solid 5 Watts, which is waaay more than a wimpy iDEN phone puts out. And cops, hams, etc don't have any higher cancer rates than anybody else.

Hams and RF engineers regularly hang around transmitters that put out hundreds of watts, with no ill effects.

When I key up my ham radio, the stereo in the living room starts screeching full volume, and the TV upstairs dies. Annoying? Yes. Dangerous. No.

Re:Sky high rates?

[brucmack]

When I was working in Europe last year, all the mobiles caused distortion in nearby equipment, monitors or speakers. Those were with new Nokia and Ericsson phones.

However, I don't think it's something that shielding can't protect from. Otherwise I'm sure our PCs wouldn't have been very happy.

Re:Sky high rates?

[ckaminski]

Yeah, that was me.

I lived under a semi-active AFB for a while, and let me tell you, a 747 has *NOTHING* on a C5 galaxy hanging 100' above your bedroom at 3AM on a Sunday.

I could sleep on jet engine. :-) The only thing that prevents me from sleeping gate to gate is the pressure changes.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Elvisisdead]

I've had 3 different phones from Nextel, and they all do it. The first was an i85s, and it would do it all the time. The blackberry models aren't as bad, but it still happens. I thought my home theater was messed up for a while until I noticed the phone was communicating with the network when the thumping was happening....

Re:Sky high rates?

[bhtooefr]

The i50sx does it to cheap-ass Benwin speakers, too. The i60c doesn't seem to do that, though. (BTW, the i50sx made the windshield wipers run when hooked into the cigarette lighter - thank Dodge for that)

Also, on Sprint, you can sign up for a plan where you can roam for up to half of your used minutes (including n&w and m2m) for the month for $5 without any other charge. Cingular (AFAIK) has no roaming charges. However, Verizon has roaming charges, AT&T will SLAM you if you get their national plan (DON'T TRUST THE MAPS...), T-Mobile I'm not sure on, and Nextel has no roaming - period.

Re:Sky high rates?

[TheUglyAmerican]

I'm a pilot and can relate the following:

My Nextel i90c will interfere with older aircraft radios. I can hear clicking in the radio periodically. I don't notice that it disrupts navigation radios or GPS.

Also, my cell phone typically doesn't work when I get over 5000 feet or so. No signal.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mikecron]

Equally, I've accidently travelled on a post 9/11 cross-european flight with a pocketknife keyring. I realised when I was in the air that it was in my carry on "man bag": this was after I waited one hour at Stansted to make my way through supposedly tight security. I wanted to take an in-flight photograph to prove it, yet worried that attendant would see me and I'd be meeting the boys in blue at the other end.

Airport security is a joke anyway. You can be stopped at the security check for things like pocket knives (and even tweezers). Then they allow people to buy things like bottles of wine just before boarding the plane. You could easily smash the bottle while in-flight, and you'd have a weapon far deadlier than any pocket-knife!

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

Before you get too worried, consider than walkie-talkies have been used by cops, workmen, ham radio ops, etc for many decades, and any of those put out a solid 5 Watts, which is waaay more than a wimpy iDEN phone puts out. And cops, hams, etc don't have any higher cancer rates than anybody else.

I wasn't overly worried about it -- just pointing out that some of my friends made comments about it. I figure that there are far more dangerous things in the modern World that will kill me way before my cell phone does. Besides my tinfoil hat that protects me from the Government brain probes also doubles as an RF shield to protect me from my cell phone :)

I do recall a study a few years ago that radar guns were causing testicular cancer in cops (the theory behind it behing that they would often hold it between their legs while chasing someone so it didn't fall off the seat and get damaged) but I don't recall if anything ever came of that. In any case I'm sure the radar gun puts out a hellva lot more RF (not to mention on different frequencies) then my wussy cell phone does.

Re:Sky high rates?

[arunkv]

Of course I do recall that with my old Nextel (i700 plus -- that phone was a beast) I could tell when a call was incoming before the ringer went off because it would interfere with nearby speakers. I've never seen a cell phone other then that one (and I've used lots of different cell phones) interfere with anything though.

The same thing happens with my Sony Ericsson T616! It happens not only for voice calls but also SMS.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Moofie]

One of the things I used to like about free societies is that members don't have a freedom from being annoyed.

Wish I could find a free society.

Re:Sky high rates?

[AndyL]

"Do I kick people off their calls if I switch to a new tower when I drive behind a building? Somehow I doubt it -- the cell networks are designed with roaming in mind."
Yes. They're built with roaming in mind. That's the key word there. The cells are laid-out so that you will progress from one to the other in a predictable way. Imagine a map colored so that no to bordering cities share the same color. There is no way you could stand on a line and "see" two red places at once.

In an airplane your signal will carry much farther so you can hit multiple towers running on the same channels. Going back to the map analogy, once you're 40,000ft above the map there are LOTS of places where you could "see" two separate red cities. When that happens there's a good chance that the slot you're using on the tower you're officially connected to is also in use on the tower you're not supposed to be connected to but you are anyway. If that happens they drop both calls so that you can't exploit this effect for wire-tapping purposes.

"yet the FAA won't let you use them because they might 'interfere'."
The FAA is cool with it. It's the FCC that won't let you do it, and for good reason. (With any aircraft iirc.)

Most airlines have rules against it too, but that's just paranoia.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Of course I do recall that with my old Nextel
> (i700 plus -- that phone was a beast) I could tell
> when a call was incoming before the ringer went
> off because it would interfere with nearby
> speakers. I've never seen a cell phone other then
> that one (and I've used lots of different cell
> phones) interfere with anything though.

Every phone I have used - even my relatively new
Sony Ericsson T68i - causes such interference.
All my friends' phones do too.

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any UHF transmitter with significant power is going to interfere with monitors and speakers at close ranges (near field radiation). One thing nobody has really mentioned yet is that cell phones and other devices *could* generate unwanted signals that WOULD interfere with a planes systems when they are in a failure mode. Out-of-band frequency, harmonics, etc, intermodulation products.

Re:Sky high rates?

[The Ego]

are the systems onboard a modern aircraft really so fragile that my cell phone will bother them?

Yes, they are. You have to understand that navigational aids used in airplanes have been designed about 50 years ago, when EM interferences wasn't as much of a concern.

For just a report of a _pager_ causing VOR gauges anomalies, read this callback issue. I believe I have seen more of the same in other issues, although I can't be bothered to check right now.

Re:Sky high rates?

[icebike]

Ah yes the old Cell Phone detection cricuit
wired into the tv trick....

Look, airplane TV is just a VCR feeding a coax.
Nothing there is sensitive to cell phones.
Feel free to try it at home.

I've seen many airplane tvs go wonky for no
obvious reason and plenty of sharp eye'd STUs
catch phone yackers that did not think the rules
applied the THEM.

Re:Sky high rates?

[AzureLunatic]

You might as well use the AirPhone to call out, but you could receive incoming calls at your own number, which could be an issue for some people.

Or, for that matter, you could show up on the caller ID of others as yourself, rather than whatever it is that the AirPhone makes you show up as.

Re:Sky high rates?

[LostCluster]

Well, yeah...

But AirPhones can take incoming calls... you could set your cell phone voice mail to give out the 1-800 number they need to call, your flight number, and your seat number before getting on the plane.

For caller ID purposes your company could allow you to call the office number, and then use the PBX to dial out so you originate from the office's Caller ID values. Yeah, that's an extra toll hop... but it's nothing compared to the price you're paying to use the AirPhone. Or just tell whomever you're calling to expect a call from an AirPhone.

They might as well just leave a voice mail on your cell phone that you can answer as you walk off the plane and into the airport... it's not like there's much you can do from the sky anyway.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

The only thing is, you might as well use the back-of-seat AirPhones to get to that satellite trnasponder rather than your own phone and the picocell...

If you are an airline what would you rather have in your planes? Option A is a pile of handsets and card readers in the passenger cabin, together with miles of cable and a sizable PBX. All of which you have to maintain. Option B is a few boxes together with much less cabling none of which is anywhere passengers should be going.

I get the feeling that even if this allows you to use your cell phone like normal, you're going to be considered to be on a "roaming tower" as far as your cell phone company is concerned because your cell phone company won't own the picocell.

Nothing to stop a phone company "partnering" with an airline.

Therefore, forget about using your unlimited night and weekend minutes on these flights,

Working out "night" and "weekend" gets a bit complex on a plane which is flying East or West, especially on trans-Pacific flights crossing the international date line...

you'll be still paying the same through-the-nose rates for plane-to-ground communications.

With the possibility of incomming as well as outgoing calls.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

When you're on the ground and your call drops because some jackass on an airplane owns the same cell you are on then you might care.

The cellsite on the aircraft is not the same as any of the cellsites on the ground. It has it's own ID and is operating at low power inside a metal structure. Thus it's signal will only leave the plane if the door is open, even then it's only likely to go a few metres outside the door.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

In an airplane your signal will carry much farther so you can hit multiple towers running on the same channels. Going back to the map analogy, once you're 40,000ft above the map there are LOTS of places where you could "see" two separate red cities. When that happens there's a good chance that the slot you're using on the tower you're officially connected to is also in use on the tower you're not supposed to be connected to but you are anyway.

Given a choice between using a cellside at most a few 10's of metres away and one over 10 km away which do you think the typical handset is going to pick.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

Airport security is a joke anyway. You can be stopped at the security check for things like pocket knives (and even tweezers). Then they allow people to buy things like bottles of wine just before boarding the plane. You could easily smash the bottle while in-flight, and you'd have a weapon far deadlier than any pocket-knife!

With an unsmashed bottle being a rather heavy club. Which is still a nasty weapon even if it breaks... The other interesting thing is that matches and butane lighters were not placed on the prohibited list, even after the "shoe-bomber" incident.

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

It won't cause a problem if the cell phone is working properly. The thing people are worried about (for valid or invalid reasons) are what happens if the cell phone is broken and starts transmitting (or have subcarriers or harmonics) on air traffic control or guidance frequencies. The likelihood is small, but it's likely to happen in the most critical moments of flight.

If this is a real risk then it would probably make sense to ban anything capable of transmitting RF from being taken on a plane at all. Otherwise some terrorist could use modified phones to crash planes...

Re:Sky high rates?

[mpe]

You may see the big wireless companies start to offer packages with airline roaming. How hard would it be for Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, Virgin, etc to work with the airlines.

Well Virgin would be the most obvious possibility. Considering that the same company runs an airline :)

Re:Sky high rates?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron. Study something before talking.

Obviously you know nothing about electronics, physics or telecommunications.

Sorry for the harsh words, but J. H. C. Try to think before you open your pie hole!

Cells are owned by companies, you set the cell to prefer to provide service to your own customers and the other companies who you have a certain level of contract with, then you set a lower preference for lower contracts, ad infinitum. This was how it worked when I built a cell phone company in Argentina ten years ago, I am sure the same system is in use now, but more sophisticated.

Air liners use sophisticated systems that measure very small signals coming from numerous sources on numerous frequencies, do you really want to have your cell (which may be near a harmonic of the older standards) blasting with the maybe .6 watts it puts out, which at that distance (inside the aircraft) is perhaps 10000 times stronger than some of the signals that craft may be using to tell it's altitude?

Re:Sky high rates?

[crc32]

There is NO GROUND PLANE

At least, unless something goes horribly wrong...

Re:Sky high rates?

[Shakrai]

and Nextel has no roaming period

That's because the crappy Nextel phones won't let you roam. Try that when you live in upstate New York -- Nextel is useless outside of the major cities unless you are within 2mi (or less in some areas -- rolling hills are fun) of an interstate highway.

At least Verizon gives me the option of roaming. I can set my phone to "Roaming Option A" (let's it roam on any network) or "Roaming Option B") (will only roam on networks Verizon has an agreement with and are part of my minutes plan).

If I'm broke down at 12am in the middle of somewhere off my cell network then I'll happily pay 75 cents a minute for my phone call for the tow truck as opposed to walking a couple of miles. At least with any carrier besides Nextel I have this option. Will Nextel even let you roam to make a 911 call?

Re:Sky high rates?

[bhtooefr]

Unfortunately, no. We had broken down once, and almost had to walk five miles to the nearest place that we could contact someone, until we found an old AT&T prepaid phone (stuffed in a glovebox) with free roaming and a car charger, but a flat battery and no minutes (the engine still ran, so we charged it, and bought minutes over the phone, but a 911 would have worked).

BTW, I think Virgin Mobile doesn't support roaming, even though their phones technically support at least what Verizon calls "Roaming Option B" (and what Sprint calls "Extended PCS Coverage Area"), as they run on the Sprint network...

Huh?

[xSquaredAdmin]

We're supposed to turn off our cellphones on airplanes? Whoops.

Re:Huh?

[cmdr_beeftaco]

I've used my cell phone on planes for years and have only been involved in one crash and it didn't really hurt as much as I expected. I would definitly not be interested in this service. Anyone know of amplifiers and/or high gain antennae that can get through security checkpoints?

Re:Huh?

[lofoforabr]

Oh shit.
Then THAT'S the reason the plane I was flying on 11/9 collided with the WTC. Lucky me I could get off the plane and landed safely using a parachute.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

have only been involved in one crash and it didn't really hurt as much as I expected
ROFL... only one crash, eh? well, way to go, sport! You're only one crash ahead of 99% of the population! Think about this: It probably DID hurt a bit more for the OTHER PEOPLE ON THE PLANE. Are you sure they wouldn't be AT ALL upset if they knew you had your phone on the whole time? Jerk.

I never turn it off

[jzuska]

I never turn my mobile off. The phone just doenst work that high up, and I travel by air weekly. Never had any problems either.

Re:I never turn it off

[Anonymous Coward]

The purported reason for the restriction is that it could interfere with the plane's function, not about problems it causes you. So I guess you and a couple hundred other people are lucky that the warning isn't accurate and your cell phone didn't make anything go boom.

Re:I never turn it off

[goates]

The problem isn't that it interferes with the aircraft, it's that it plays havoc with the cell network on the ground below. When you use your cell phone on the ground, it is only in range of 1 cell tower at a time, unless you are moving from one tower's area (or cell) to another's. When this happens, the towers and cell know to switch. In a plane you can easily be in range of several, and moving between them quite fast. If you have a plane load of cells trying to do this, it can easily overload a cell network. All modern aircraft are shielded against radiation from electronics pretty well. There may be very specific circumstances where they could interfere with the aircraft's systems, but it is very unlikely to occur.

goates

Re:I never turn it off

[cmdr_beeftaco]

I've been using my cell phone on the plane for years and have only crashed once. Lucky for me the injuries where not severe and I am sure the plane was insured.

Re:I never turn it off

[radish]

Please wear a badge so I can avoid going on a plane with you.

Most of the civil aviation regulators of the world ban cellphones on flights, I really don't believe that they do so simply to make the network operators happy. There has been at least one crash (a CrossAir flight in Switzerland) which the official report blamed on a cellphone, and there is at least one post on this very thread from a pilot who says it is a real problem. But you know more than all of them right?

Re:I never turn it off

[FigWig]

But you will drain your batteries like crazy. When completely out of range most mobile phones boost their output to attempt to contact the cell. Best to just turn it off while in flight.

Re:I never turn it off

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Ah! That explains it! Interesting.

Last time I flew I switched off my phone and stuffed it into the overhead locker. When I reached my destination, it was: a) on b) nearly flat c) chock a block full of text messages welcoming me to all the airports we had stopped at. Presumably putting it into the locker had pushed the 'on' button. Great.

I was vaguely surprised that the battery was low- normally it lasts a week or more...

Re:I never turn it off

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, uhuh, for sure! Cellphones interfere with planes and cause them to crash. Yep. Tell me... If a terrorist can crash a plane by merely turning on a cellphone, why do we even bother to check for knives, guns and bombs?

Re:I never turn it off

[JaredOfEuropa]

I never turn my mobile off. The phone just doenst work that high up

Exactly, and even if your phone made the aircraft twitch, the pilot would just correct it as a matter of course.

And then, just as the plane approaches for landing in a tricky crosswind, your phone comes within range of the radio tower, and starts receiving a bunch of SMS messages (the 'welcome to such-and-such network' ones, and yes, phones do transmit as well when receiving messages), and screws up the avionics. But now, there is very margin for error and that twitch might well cause a crash.

Not following these safety regulations on aircraft is not only illegal, it's utterly stupid.

Re:I never turn it off

[fatray]

That is, of course, a felony in the US. (Failure to obey the instructions of a uniformed crew member.)

Re:I never turn it off

[icebike]

Believe it. Its true.

The FCC demanded this rule, not the FAA.
As for all the other country's agencies... who do you think they are emulating?

HINT: The faa does not look to France for direction.

Too complicated

[Zweistein_42]

Why not just use existing phones/ethernet jacks in Airplanes? I cannot see this much technology being any cheaper, so what is the point in using your own cell vs. built-in phones?

Re:Too complicated

[xSquaredAdmin]

The only advantage I can see is that then people would be able to call you. But it's not like it'd hurt them to leave a message on your voicemail. So I guess I don't see any advantages.

Re:Too complicated

[cmdr_beeftaco]

One word, incoming telephone calls.

Re:Too complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

*counts slowly*

*stumbles*

where's the tylenol..

Re:Too complicated

[Blimey85]

One word, incoming telephone calls.

Fscking metric system.

Re:Too complicated

[SnappleMaster]

Well, here's a reason: cell phone company revenue. If they can charge you $1 a minute (I forget what I pay for roaming) if you drive two hours, imagine what they can charge you if you're 6 miles in the air over three different states. $10 a minute? $99.95 a minute? God only knows.

I hate my cell phone, btw. I guess that's why I never carry it around.

Incidentally, wtf is a roaming fee? Is it just a revenue source, or is the cell phone network actually that insanely expensive to operate? I guess that's probably a stupid question, eh?

Re:Too complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, if you plug your phone in the whole time, then the phone could tell the plane what it's phonenumber and provider are, the plane would tell the provider where to find the phone. When someone calls the provider would route the call to your phone still. This is already done with roaming. I think though that the phones would need to be updated to handle the new interface though, and a universal plug might be required, which would be a good thing for other reasons..

Re:Too complicated

[shamino0]

Incidentally, wtf is a roaming fee? Is it just a revenue source, or is the cell phone network actually that insanely expensive to operate?

It's actually very simple.

The towers that your cell phone communicates with are owned by the different cell carriers. If you're in your home region, you are connected to your own company's tower.

When you travel, you may have to connect to some other company's tower. When this happens (assuming you can connect at all), this other company will be originating your call. They will bill your company for the call, and that bill gets passed on to you. This (possibly with a service fee tacked on) is the roaming charge.

The charges are less today than in the past because the industry is maturing. The companies today usually have enough spare bandwidth on the towers that they don't have to worry about roamers using up all the capacity. And the different companies end up completing each others' calls so much that the monthly settlements (where each company bills the other for roamers) end up balancing out (mostly).

This is why today you can get a plan like the one Verizon gave me recently, where almost all of the US is a covered area, and roaming charges are 40 cents per minute for those few areas that are not covered. A lot higher than land-line calls, but a lot less than they were in the past.

As more towers get put up, and as more carriers decide to allow each others' roamers through without extra charges, I suspect we'll see roaming fees drop even further and eventually disappear altogether. (ISTR a recent ad for a carrier promising absolutely no roaming charges within the US.)

The whole no phones in planes

[Marxist Commentary]

is simply a red herring. The airlines stand to make confiscatory profits from the seat-back phones, which charge upwards of $10/minute. Thus, there is no incentive for them to change. Why would this be adopted?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[LostCluster]

Nope... there's two bans on phones in flight...

- The FAA doesn't like them because of the longshot theory that radio waves of any kind might just add up to a signal that tricks autopilot or other navigational systems into glitching, causing the plane to crash. That's a long shot risk, but the disaster case is kinda a bad one if it ever happens.

- The FCC also has a ban because when you're in flight, you're always at least 6-8 miles away from the nearest cell tower. You end up communicating with too many towers and bogging down the network. One or two such calls is tolerable, but a whole plane load moving through would disrupt the ground-based users of the network.

This picocell concept solves both problems by moving the nearest cell tower to just a few feet away from the phone. Therefore, the phone kicks into its lowest power setting, and never talks to any other tower.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[LordDartan]

I've been a pilot for 15 years now and I can tell you without a doubt that cellphones (and most any electronic device) can affect instruments in the airplane. Yes, in this day and age the chances of that have been reduced, but it can still happen.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[d_p]

The restriction against cell phones is an FCC regulation and applies to all aircraft that can fly over a certain speed (maybe 200 kts?). Quickly switching cells during high speed flight causes all sorts of problems on the cell network. The common misconception is that this is an FAA reg. A pilot is under no obligation to follow FCC regs. However, the pilots have to obey the airlines, and the passengers must obey the pilot. So maybe it is a plot to force passengers to use in seat phones. Nevertheless, whenever my cell phone rings in the car, my AM/FM radio buzzes. I'd hate to think what would happen on night ILS approach in a thunderstorm...

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[thebra]

Then why do cell phone manuals tell you not to use it in an airplane?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Kenja]

Cell phones CAN cause problems with radar systems. However only in select spots (ie where yuo are in relation to the radar). Rather then say that yuo can use a cell phone anyplace on the plane other then this red circle, they just say no phones. Hell, you cant use a cell phone in the front section of the ferry boat I ride home each day because its under the radar dome.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[On Lawn]

Heh, I can tell when my phone is about to ring becuase I hear a sort of drum-beat in every set of speakers (on or off) that are around me.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[thpdg]

I thought those phones had been going away? The last couple times I flew, they were out of service, on the pretense that they were being removed/phased out.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Anonymous Coward]

The FAA doesn't like them because of the longshot theory that radio waves of any kind might just add up to a signal that tricks autopilot or other navigational systems into glitching, causing the plane to crash. That's a long shot risk, but the disaster case is kinda a bad one if it ever happens.

If cell phones are really a problem, then they should not be allowed on planes, period. Asking people to turn them off is not enough.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Waffle Iron]

Why would this be adopted?

Probably because the airlines can still get a piece of the action with this scheme. They can do a deal with the phone companies to split an outrageously priced "roaming" fee for these calls. People would be much more likely to use their own phones than those crappy phones in the backs of seats. (I can't remember ever seeing anyone actually use one of those things.)

Even if they only charged half or less of the unbelievable current air phone price, the total call volume would go way up, and so would the airlines' revenues from phone services.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[GuyinVA]

Can someone please explain to me how listening to 'Beastie Boys' on my iPod will screw up the planes electronics? If the systems are that bad, I'll be driving from now on.

If electronics really were that bad, wouldn't/shouldn't they be forbiden all the time, and not just take offs and landings?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Anonymous Coward]

A pilot is under no obligation to follow FCC regs.

Wanna bet?

The FCC is a governmental regulatory agency. Break their rules and you WILL be fined. Your statement here is unbelievably ignorant.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Jott42]

Because listening to "Beastie Boys" might disturb something, and they don't like to take chances. (Especially not in the US, where you might get sued for the worth of the company.)

And things are a little bit more critical when taking off or landing. Lets say that something made the plane pitch five degrees for a second. At 10.000 feet it does not matter much, but at 10 ft it is the same as disaster.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cell phones CAN cause problems with radar systems."

Quick! Tell the military. If cell-phones cause radars to glitch, they could attach phones to fighter-planes!

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[YrWrstNtmr]

Take off & landing are particulary stressful times, on the aircrew as well as the aircraft.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have one of the engines being fed erroneous data because the RF coming out of your iPod was interacting with the RF coming out of the laptop in the seat in front of you, and the GameBoy in the seat next to you, with the resulting harmonics affecting the air data signals being sent to the engine management computer.

Losing engine power on takeoff is not the way to a long, fruitful life.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[__aaklbk2114]

Quick! Tell the military. If cell-phones cause radars to glitch, they could attach phones to fighter-planes!

Um... ever heard of an EA-6B Prowler?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[SnappleMaster]

I have never understood this. It would be trivial for terrorists to smuggle multiple high-power transmitters onto a plane. If transmitting could cause a plane to crash... well something doesn't add up here!

Either the risk is overstated (GROSSLY, to put it mildly) or terrorists are stupid (which I'm prepared to believe). Which is it?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[noidentity]

"This picocell concept solves both problems by moving the nearest cell tower to just a few feet away from the phone. Therefore, the phone kicks into its lowest power setting, and never talks to any other tower."

This seems like a safety risk, in that it relies on every cell phone in use on the plane to properly detect the picocell; any phone which doesn't is then transmitting at full power.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Ben Hutchings]

Yes, and even when they do detect it I wonder why they would select the picocell (which may well require roaming) rather than a normal land-based cell. Perhaps the system involves blocking signals from the cells on the ground?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Aidtopia]

the longshot theory that radio waves of any kind might just add up to a signal that tricks autopilot or other navigational systems into glitching, causing the plane to crash

I've read several points of view on this debate and was leaning toward the it's-too-low-power-to-matter side. At least I was until I tested out my new (FRS) walkie-talkie. This half-watt transmitter will consistently and reliably convince my HP Photosmart film scanner that I've pressed a button just by transmitting from four feet away. How powerful is a cell phone at full power? How far is first class from the cockpit?

My concern about the picocell is what if a phone fails to recognize it and thus doesn't reduce power?

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[isorox]

How to be a terrorist: 101

1) Buy a high powered pocket transmitter that fits in your hold luggage
2) Buy an alarm clock and/or altimeter and/or mobile phone
3) Put them together
4) Activate transmitter at takeoff or landing
5) Kaboom

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[ptbarnett]

have never understood this. It would be trivial for terrorists to smuggle multiple high-power transmitters onto a plane. If transmitting could cause a plane to crash... well something doesn't add up here!

RF interference doesn't just cause a plane to auger into the ground.

Avionics are one of many means used by the pilots for guidance. Everything is cross-checked with other instruments, especially during the critical phase of approach. If something doesn't add up (one instrument says one thing, while another contradicts it) and the runway is not in sight, a missed approach is initiated and the airplane goes around for another approach (or diverts to a pre-planned alternate).

Even when a Cat-III approach is in progress (full automatic landing, with all flight controls in the "hands" of the autopilot), both pilots are watching the progress of the approach carefully, ready to override and go around at the first indication of a problem.

An airplane crash is almost always the result of multiple mistakes in succession or parallel -- no single failure should cause a crash. Detection of RF interference should occur before it causes an unrecoverable problem. But, detected or undetected, it reduces the margin for error,

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Unregistered]

And as a piolet all you do is sit in the plane hoping for something to break so you can actually fly instead of just watching the autopilot, so i doubt you care if cells are being used.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.glenair.com/html/emi.htm is the obvious example of this, although that was a higher level of radiation of course.

Re:The whole no phones in planes

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. Also, what if your phone does recognize the picocell and does attempt to reduce power, but the power amp is fucked and it transmits at full power anyway and at the wrong frequencies!?

Your FRS radio is probably more power than the average cell phone, but not by much.

just what we've been waiting for...

[twstdr00t]

I can't tell you how nice it would be to have wifi on the plane...

Re:just what we've been waiting for...

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Oh but this is slashdot so please try we are all interested.

Uh-oh...

[aussersterne]

I'm not one of those virulent mobile phone haters (I use mine all the time), but imagining a long flight with a cabin full of people having inane conversations with their chums and having to yell over the engine noise... all 100+ of them... is my idea of a bad time.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Kenja]

The way I see it, if they can have their cell phones, then I should get my gun. Its a checks and ballances issue.

Re:Uh-oh...

[selderrr]

It is allready happening on the bus, on the train, in the subway and (god forbid) in the movie theatre. Expect planes to be infected soon.

I recall a few months back, going to a movie (don't remember which one. It was supposed to be funny but apparently it didn't stick as such) and there was a couple in front of us with a 4 month old baby. Although I don't consider movie theartres an appropriate place for babies (mainly becasue of audio volume), the kid was adorable and slept the whole show through. When the movie was over, the couple got up, waking the kid in the process, who promptly cried for food. Then some dork in a seat 2 rows up behind us started yelling"'can't you shut that shit, I'm trying to make a phonecall here !"

Never been so embarassed in my whole life !

Re:Uh-oh...

[nkh]

You don't need to be that violent. Just throw the cellphone out of the plane's windowwwwwwww....

Re:Uh-oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

magining a long flight with a cabin full of people having inane conversations with their chums

As opposed to a long flight with a cabin full of people having inane conversations with the people next to them?

I always travel with earplugs. They are wonderfull.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Minwee]

Having all 100+ conversations being "Hey, guess where I'm calling you from!" and "Can you hear me now?" would be even worse.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell phones on planes is a really bad idea.... Yikes.

I got upset with one idiot yapping on the cell phone, the whole plane would be unbearable.

Just another reason not to fly.

Or maybe a good reason to buy a cell phone jammer :-).

Hey, maybe we just found a good use for all those sky marshals after all :-).

Re:Uh-oh...

[sp00j]

Yeah, ah flippin' great, a plane full of feckheads yammering out loud on their frickin' cell phones. I think I'm going to check out of this alleged modern society... The amount of intelligence in the universe is a constant - the problem is there are more and more people.

Re:Uh-oh...

[CarrionBird]

This is something I don't get. People don't get bent out of shape when you carry on a converstion with a live person in a restaurant, or a plane. But when you put that other person on a phone, it becomes offensive.

What up with that?

Re:Uh-oh...

[bnenning]

People don't get bent out of shape when you carry on a converstion with a live person in a restaurant, or a plane. But when you put that other person on a phone, it becomes offensive. What up with that?

My theory, entirely unsupported by scientific evidence: Our brains are pretty good at filtering out uniform background noise (air conditioning, computer fans, etc). Two people having a conversation produce a more constant sound output than one person on a cell phone (who alternates between talking and silence), so the guy on the phone is harder to ignore and thus more annoying.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Ben Hutchings]

It seems that hearing one side of a conversations is more distracting than hearing both sides, perhaps because when you hear both sides the conversation is a fairly constant noise.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Unregistered]

And some asshole would call every minuite.

"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over Alabama"
one minuite later
"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over Mississippi"
one minuite later
"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over Lousiana"
one minuite later
"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over Texas"
one minuite later
"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over New Mexico"
one minuite later
"Guess what! I'm calling from a plane over Ari... What are you doing with that plastic knife. NOOO!! AAARGH!!"

Re:Uh-oh...

[pen]

Because cell phones are much more annoying than a conversation. This is supported by recent reasearch:

• Why Mobile Phones are Annoying

Is the danger real?

[still cynical]

Does anyone know where I could find some sort of evidence that there is a danger to begin with? Maybe then I'll stop believing that it's purely a matter of hoovering my wallet as completely as possible.

Re:Is the danger real?

[cheide]

There is certainly a potential for interference. Electromagnetic compatibility isn't always a straightforward matter; I briefly worked on a software tool to assist in compatibility testing and there are a *huge* number of ways signals from different components in an aircraft can combine and interfere with others. You can't just certify a range of frequencies as being okay and leave it at that, because it also depends on how the frequencies are generated inside the device, which may be different from device to device. Any time a new frequency-generating device was to be added to a plane, it had to undergo fairly extensive testing first.

One case that they were investigating involved a jet that was fitted with extra sensors and transmitters to gather vibration data. After taking off and reaching level flight, the pilot turned on the sensors, only to have the entire avionics system immediately shut down. It took a while before they finally figured out what had happened -- the sensor packages were transmitting on the resonant frequency of a length of metal in the plane, which acted as an antenna and leaked energy into the nearby circuit breaker, which then tripped.

I'm not sure how well this relates to cell phones since these were fairly high-power devices and I'm not familiar with cell phones, but for what it's worth...

Re:Is the danger real?

[kc8tbe]

The situation isn't really dangerous. In fact, HAM radio operators are allowed to use their radios during flight (just not during take off and landing). The problem isn't in interference with avionic equipment but rather, as has already been mentioned, in the cell network.

Normally several adjacent towers pick up your signal, and then decide which one has the best signal quality. That tower then handles the signal. Remember, signal quality/strength is best with a line-of-sight to the cell tower. Well, on an airplane, you have line of site to lots of cell towers - some of which are several miles apart and consequently not programmed to defer your signal. Too many users doing this could crash the cell phone network!

Perhaps a more effective solution would be better tracking software in cell towers. Software that enabled far-away towers to communicate and defer your signal would resolve the problem and be a whole lot cheaper than using sattelite uplinks.

Re:Is the danger real?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is correct. Near frequency signals can be additive to create a different frequency signal with a much greater magnitude. The new signal could potentially reside in an important place in the EM spectrum. On a daily basis its not that big of a deal because most electronics are in grounded sheilded cases, and the phones are not so close to each other... on a plane with 300 other phones, inside the faraday cage, with many long running wires acting as antennae... there are many chances for any stray signal to enter the electronics.

With the complexity of these systems it is nearly impossible to confirm that there will be no events triggered by a stray signal.. Newer electronics (digital) are better... older analog systems are much more prone to failure. For example the magnitude of the signal could get trapped on a wire to an analog sensor... say temperature sensor for example... the temperature sensors use very low voltages and any small change in that voltage results in a different reading. A cell phone signal near the wiring could cause a change in the DC level of the wire, causing a percieved temperature change. Minor.. yes... but it does affect the system... in the wrong place, it could be fatal.

Re:Is the danger real?

[benesch]

Well, take a look at this

Re:Is the danger real?

[jay2003]

Most people don't understand the statistics involved when it comes to expected norms of commercial airplane safety. There are almost 10,000,000 commerical airplane flights a year so if unlimited cell phone crashed only 1 in 10,000,000 flights, one plane every year would be lost. Even if it's 1 in a 100,000,000, that's one plane every ten years. I just don't think it's a worth plane crash with potentially hundreds of passengers dead just so people can talk for cheap on their cell phones.

Look here for statistical information on airplane safety

And besides, airplanes are one of few respites in the modern world from constant cell phone ringing. If phones were found to be safe on planes, every flight would become a cacophony of really irrating ring tones. Forget ever being able to sleep on a plane again.

Re:Is the danger real?

[Thurn und Taxis]

Does anyone know where I could find some sort of evidence that there is a danger to begin with?

Step 1: Go here.
Step 2: Bake on high heat for four years.
Step 3: Calculate the odds of crashing to six significant digits.

Could prevent another 9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

Reliable independent comm in flight, and even internet connectivity, could be used to notify officials and the military if they're asleep on the job about a terrorist event.

Re:Could prevent another 9-11

[cmdr_beeftaco]

So can a flare gun but they won't let me bring that onboard either.

Re:Could prevent another 9-11

[Mateito]

No.

With the exception of the plane that crashed in Philidelphia, the passengers had no reason to suspect that they were part of a suicide pact.

Pre-911 hijackers diverted planes to some airport or other, and issued demands until they got away or got shot. The death of a passenger was the exception rather than the rule.

Only a post-911 world do we equate hijacking with mega-deaths.

Didn't realize the range was that great

[Atario]

Cell phones can tranceive at 0.1% their normal power level -- in addition to who knows how many times normal when in that highest-power mode? What, 1000x? That would be millionfold range. Is that true? Talk about planning ahead...

Re:Didn't realize the range was that great

[Mateito]

I vaguely recall that range scales to the 4th power of power (no pun intended), but I could quite easily be talking through my arse.

Re:Didn't realize the range was that great

[Paul Crowley]

Surely power requirements grow on the square of distance? So that would be only about 30 times the range.

Re:Didn't realize the range was that great

[Atario]

Sorry for the sloppy terminology...I meant the range of the power levels, as in "a range of 0.1% to 100000% normal", not range as in distance between antennae.

So you'd rather...

[lxt]

...a plane crashed to prove it?

There's lots of evidence that phones can interfere with navigation equipment, and from my experience as an audio engineer I can tell you digital cell phones can very easily intefere with electrical equipment, disrupting signals etc.

Re:So you'd rather...

[radish]

One already did. A CrossAir flight in Switzerland went down a couple of years ago - the official report said a phone was a likely cause. Haven't got a link but I guess google will find one for you.

Re:So you'd rather...

[GooberToo]

How many piecese of your equipment are RF shielded?

Re:So you'd rather...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I live in an area with no coverage. When I get into coverage, my cell phone starts talking to the network and you hear various beeps etc come through the car audio system. This also happens when the phone acknowledges an incoming call. This still happens when there is a tape playing (ie radio off), which means that this signal is pretty huge.

About ten years ago there way a posting on sci.electronics where a guy who is an EE and a private pilot claimed that he could set up his autopilot to steer towards a radio beacon, then manipulate the plane's direction by playing with a regular FM radio. An FM radio only has a weak local oscillator.

So, personally I'd rather be a coward and keep those damn phones off.

Re:So you'd rather...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's lots of evidence that phones can interfere with navigation equipment, and from my experience as an audio engineer I can tell you digital cell phones can very easily intefere with electrical equipment, disrupting signals etc.

Well, then the aircraft engineers need to shield their equipment properly. My cell phone puts out 200 milliwatts at max power. Even if I turn off my cell phone, the plane is still bombarded by much stronger signals from thousands of cell phone towers, and many other ground-based radio sources. Many FM stations in my city broadcast with 50,000 watts, and planes don't crash.

Alternatively, it is far more likely the airlines are talking out of their ass to charge ridiculous fees on their phone service.

And audio gear, even pro audio gear, is only FCC class a or b certified. Aircraft gear is certified to a much more robust standard.

Ok, I guess

[Mateito]

.. as long as its restricted during long haul flights.

Last thing I want is to be sitting next to some jerk who spends the whole flight yacking while I'm busy trying to adjust my body clock for the 10am presentation I'm giving on the next continent.

Picocells are the future

[Paul Crowley]

I've been predicting picocells for a while. I think there will be a lot of them. A private owner (eg a shop or a bar) installs a picocell, hooks it up to their broadband connection, and gets some of the call revenue from the network provider in return for taking some of the weight off the towers. Battery life is improved, radiation reduced, and everyone wins. The cells units are small and cheapish, and when they fail you just send them back by post and get sent a replacement. You'll see them underground in metro stations, or at the backs of shops in buildings which block radio waves.

Re:Picocells are the future

[JabberWokky]

I'd just like one in my house so I can choose to use the landline when at home so I don't have to worry about minutes or long distance, plus having better reception and high speed bandwidth. Kind of like a base station for a portable, and when I get too far away, it flips over to the cell system.

--
Evan

Re:Picocells are the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Picocells are old hat.

Femtocells are the next big thing.

Re:Picocells are the future

[rleibman]

Forget that, just so that I can have cell reception in my house (a nicely secluded lot in the middle of a city, but one in a ravine without any reception at all).

Re:Picocells are the future

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been predicting picocells for a while... ...You'll see them underground in metro stations

If I see them in metro stations I'll start carrying wire cutters. The Underground is one of the few places in London where you're guaranteed sanctuary from some asshole with nothing to say and a loud enough mouth that he doesn't actually need a phone. Sure, I can't even get an SMS in or out, but the peace.... wasn't until quite recently that I realised what was missing.

Re:Picocells are the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellphones don't use wires, so that's not going to help.

Also it's illegal to carry a set of wirecutters (and many other items) on a vehicle of public transport in the UK without a license, punishable by fines of up to 10,000GBP and two years in prison. A second offense is punishable by up to ten years, under the Blunket's manditory sentencing guidelines.

Re:Picocells are the future

[Paul Crowley]

Heh, yeah, in my ideal future they only allow you to send SMS messages...

Re:Picocells are the future

[Ctrl-Z]

Yeah, and then they start charging extra service fees for using them inside the building. Just like those ATM machines you find everywhere. And just like you can never find a Real Bank ATM, you won't be able to find a pay telephone anywhere.

Re:Picocells are the future

[Paul Crowley]

If they did that you'd have to explicitly consent to paying more for the call, even for an incoming call. I don't think it'll work that way - I think the phone company will pass on some of the money saved because it didn't need a mast to handle the call on to the picocell owner.

Re:Picocells are the future

[Ben Hutchings]

The PHS mobile system supports that. Unfortunately it's almost unknown outside of Asia.

Re:Picocells are the future

[baka_vic]

In UK, there is a ONEPHONE service, which is supposed to provide such a service. If it dectects your home DECT basestation, it switches over to it, away from the cell network. Here's a link.

Re:Picocells are the future

[lga]

Are you telling me that when I go to fix a computer I can't take my toolkit with me on the bus? I also carry wirecuters in my guitar case, (for string changes) and take it on the bus all the time.

Re:Picocells are the future

[Ctrl-Z]

In my experience, they will collect as much money as they possibly can. I can't see any savings being passed on. Not knowing anything about cell technology ... would it not be possible to set up the cell to ask you to consent the rate before making the call?

Re:Picocells are the future

[Paul Crowley]

No, it's nonsense.

Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[sibdib]

CDMA is both a mobile phone standard (IS-95) and a technology (Code Division Multiple Access) and if you're comparing "GSM" to "TDMA" to "CDMA" then you're refering to phone standards. CDMA the phone standard is junk, in all honesty, and is being phased out. The direct replacement for it is CDMA2000, which existing US IS-95 operators like Sprint PCS and Verizon are moving to.

CDMA the technology is rather better and is being used in a number of newer systems. GSM "version 2" is called UMTS, and has a configurable air interface which can be GSM's Time Division Multiple Access, EDGE (a more modern and efficient Time Division MA system), or a variant of Code Division Multiple Access (ie the CDMA the technology, not CDMA the mobile phone standard) called WCDMA, depending on the operator's preferences.

Only CDMA2000 is based upon CDMA the standard. UMTS is based upon GSM. TD-CDMA is a completely new system and isnt' based upon anything. It does use "CDMA the technology", but it certainly isn't related in any way, shape, or form to IS-95.

Re:Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, thanks. Could you credit me next time? - squiggleslash.

Re:Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[FrankDrebin]

CDMA the phone standard is junk, in all honesty, and is being phased out. The direct replacement for it is CDMA2000, which existing US IS-95 operators like Sprint PCS and Verizon are moving to.

I assume you are implying that the voice quality is junk. The cellular providers are under pressure to make a profit so that generally means they utilize lower bit-rate voice coders on their IS-95 networks (to get more users on a given bandwidth). cdma2000 uses the exact same voice coders (well there is a new one too). And let's not forget that half of every conversation is a mobile phone, and all those legacy IS-95 phones still work on cdma2000 networks which are backwards compatible.

Although a number of other improvements are offered by cdma2000, when it comes to voice quality cdma2000 is no Cadillac to IS-95's Pinto.

Re:Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[squiggleslash]

I assume you are implying that the voice quality is junk.

No, I said in my original comment that the standard is junk. The call quality is fine, it's approximately the same as EFR GSM. However, it's an absurdly basic, if not positively backward, system which is only slightly more capable than an AMPS phone with a built in pager and a modem.

There's no position independence (your phone book will not work properly if you leave the region you set the numbers up in, for instance), there's no device independence (you need to call your carrier just to switch phones), internetwork signalling is poorly handled which lead, at one point, to phone companies having to agree on a different way of forwarding calls, because if you were roaming, set a forward, and moved onto another network, you'd have no way to cancel the forwarding!

My understanding is that at least some of these issues are fixed in CDMA2000, though not necessarily in a way that carriers "have to" support in order to support the standard. Qualcomm's insistance on allowing carriers to actively prevent users making use of what ought to be ordinary features doesn't really help end users either.

Re:Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[Anonymous Coward]

Qualcomm's insistance on allowing carriers to actively prevent users making use of what ought to be ordinary features doesn't really help end users either.

"insistance on allowing"? What an odd linguistic construction. If the carriers choose not to implement a feature, perhaps it is more their fault than Qualcomm's.

Re:Obligatory Mobile Explainer

[squiggleslash]

Er, no. If you're defining a standard, then you are permitted to insist on what's a part of that standard.

If a GSM operator tried, as Sprint PCS does, to have phones contain subscriber information rather than leave it on the SIM card so the user can choose which phone they use, then they wouldn't be able to claim it's GSM. Phone manufacturers would have to create specialised phones for that operator, they wouldn't be able to ship the fully GSM-compliant equipment they currently ship.

Qualcomm has made pretty much all the critical stuff in CDMA2000 "optional". That's not the case with GSM or UMTS.

Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be easier to put a base station *on the plane*, so the phones would operate normally and then the base would communicate with the rest of the network using satellite comms or somesuch?

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

...

someone grab this guy a clue?

Price

[Sophrosyne]

...for some reason I just have this feeling this is going to be expensive...

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You'd actually have to *pay* for services? Can't be!

Cost?

[slykens]

What kind of fees can we expect for this?

Inside the US seat-back phone calls run $2-$3 per minute. I had to make a call over India from Lufthansa's satellite phone on Inmarsat's network at $10 per minute a few years ago. That was an expensive call.

Roaming on a $10 per minute network certaintly would keep the chatter to a minimum for those who don't want to listen to people on mobile phones in airplanes. SMS, however, would be very cool and should be very quiet.

Re:Cost?

[arunkv]

SMS, however, would be very cool and should be very quiet.

Last year, around March, when I was flying Singapore Airlines, they were introducing SMS services via their in-flight consoles. Being the introductory period, it was free and very convenient. I would guess by now they should have deployed it more widely in their fleet.

Shit.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

What we do NOT need is 300 assholes all chatting away while in a confined space for 6 hours.

The RULE on all airplane flights should be, "Sit down, don't smoke, don't talk, shut the fuck up and read a book because hundreds of strangers need to get along so be fucking polite, please." That should be written on every ticket.

I can't stand how self-indulgent most people are, and how important they want to think they are, and can't go without a cell phone or a deep conversation about Cosmo magazine for a few hours. Grow the fuck up and learn to sit still and read something quietly on a place. Seriously.

This is technology being used in a very BAD way IMO.

Re:Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Add to that:

Don't touch, kick, move the seat rest in front of you. Drop the table, push the table like there's no tomorrow.
Don't use it to pry your ass out of your seat. Don't touch them while walking down the isle.
Just let people sleep.

Re:Shit.

[david614]

While I generally agree, I think random surfing on a high speed link (in cabin wifi) would be neat. It could also be quiet, as long as people don't enable VoIP applications while in the air. That would be a nightmare!

Re:Shit.

[randyest]

Now that's flamebait.

Seriously. No matter how good you think your social skills are, or how impeccably perspicacious your banter may seem to you, I may not (and probably don't) want to hear it on a plane while I'm trying to read/sleep/watch a movie. See, we're stuck close together, I can't just move away from you like I might in another situation.

So yeah, I have to agree with the grandparent poster -- you really should keep conversations to a minimum, and at a very low volume, when flying. It's polite (i.e., a good social skill).

I'm not sure what the jab about being the other posters child was supposed to mean, but I for one would hate to share a plane with you if you think "good social skills" on a plane is anything other than shutting the fuck up as much as possible.

Re:Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Parent up. Amen

Re:Shit.

[zakezuke]

The RULE on all airplane flights should be, "Sit down, don't smoke, don't talk, shut the fuck up and read a book because hundreds of strangers need to get along so be fucking polite, please." That should be written on every ticket.

I on the other hand... I have no objection to the person next to me talking on a mobile. Just so long as they are not talking to me. Not that i'm anti-social or anything, I've had the uncomfortable experence of someone trying to convert me to their religion.

I can see where a bunch of jabbering yahoos might disturb someone like your self, and I totally respect that. To that end I would sugest that text messaging be the acceptable medium on aircraft.

Re:Shit.

[MagicM]

Exactly. If you're important enough to *need* your cellphone while on the plane, you're important enough to charter your own jet. Or at the very least be in business class with the business people who might understand.

Re:Shit.

[whovian]

A-frickin-MEN!

People lately are letting their cell phones "ring" for 30 seconds or so. That's just waaaay too long.

maybe they are just insecure about themselves. But I'm geting tired and am to the point of leaning over and speaking very loudly "EXcuse me...phone call for you!"

I don't think I could take 40 phones going off at once in such a confined space. I know Lt. Cmdr. Data could discern all those tones, but could the phone owners?

Re:Shit.

[GooberToo]

If it takes someone 30-seconds to figure out how to answer their cell phone, I think that's nature telling them they are too stupid to own one. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. :(

Re:Shit.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I would hate to be your child.

Wanna try being my BITCH instead?

Re:Shit.

[Saeger]

I've had the uncomfortable experence of someone trying to convert me to their religion.

No reason for that to be uncomfortable.

I just explain that the only aspect of religion I need is the Golden Rule which is at the core of just about every religion on Earth; that I have no want or need for all the other specific dogma and "social-club-benefits" that comes with their religious package.

--

Re:Shit.

[grotgrot]

I really wish they would look into other ways of fitting people in planes. I would love it if they could do it Japanese capsule hotel style (as long as each one is at least 6'5" long so I fit :-)

That way each person would only annoy themselves. Or perhaps they need an assholes and non-asshole section like the smoking/non-smoking sections of yore.

Re:Shit.

[wembley]

I have these things I take on an airplane, called headphones. Perhaps you've heard of them?

I find they do quite nicely at blocking out conversations, screaming babies, etc., while cocooning me in my own choice of music, not the crap the plane provides.

Get yourself a nice pair of closed-ear or in-ear phones. (Sony EX71SL is good blocker of amient noise)

They also work very well with this other thing I take on a plane, called an iPod.

Re:Shit.

[karnal]

I agree with you as well.

"So yeah, I have to agree with the grandparent poster -- you really should keep conversations to a minimum, and at a very low volume, when flying. It's polite (i.e., a good social skill). "

What I was saying is telling someone to shut the fuck up just for the sake of being in an airplane is impolite.

The FAA doesn't care.

[LOL WTF OMG!!!!!!!!!]

Plenty of phones already have "Airplane Mode".

The stewardess will still attempt to behead you should she see any light emitting from your mobile.

Re:The FAA doesn't care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is not off-topic, it really is true.

There are cellphones with an airlane safe mode that will do all of their functions (camera and what not) except making and receiving phone calls.

At this point they cause ZERO interference, but the FAA could care less about that, and still make it against the rules.

Pretty expensive uplink costs

[Dubber]

(from the bottom of the article):"Connexion's pricing, announced late last month, puts unlimited Wi-Fi access at $29.95 for flights longer than six hours; $19.95 for flights between three and six hours; and $14.95 for flights less than three hours. Connectivity can be purchased on a metered basis for $9.95 for the first 30 minutes and 25 cents for each additional minute. Airlines are considering an option to pay for connectivity with frequent-flyer miles, Boeing has said."

$20.00 / 6 hours = $3.33/hour
or
$30.00 / 6+ hours = ~$5.00/hour on East Coast US to Europe flights down to 1.50 an hour or so for those West Coast US to Australia flights.

& I thought 24.95 for a day's access at a conference was exorbitant!

Re:Pretty expensive uplink costs

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems like a bargain to me.. Having Internet access on a long international flight would be well worth an additional $30. Especially on flights where you don't have your own LCD TV and the only viewing option is a shitty movie, edited for content, and hacked down to the little fuzzy 4:3 displays on the plane.

On short flights, $20 is a bit steep. On those, boredom is not so much of an issue, and I'll just read a book.

Re:Pretty expensive uplink costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about the return on the frequent flyer miles...

I'm probably screwing up the math here, someone correct me if i am, i'm in a hurry

Consider a flight from portland to tokyo which is ~10k miles and (my guess) about 7/8 hours. With the nwa worldperks plan you get 15000 miles. If you take a ticket price of 250 bucks, that means they're paying YOU ~47 bucks an hour to fly with them. It seems like the airlines could really make a killing if they say "free wifi if you talk half the sky-miles you would earn"...

Word.

Re:Pretty expensive uplink costs

[bug-eyed monster]

That may be a Good Thing. As others have mentioned, if this feature becomes accessible then half the passengers will be annoying the other half with their non-stop cellphone conversations. But if the cost is high enough, only those who really need it will use it (pretty much the way it is with the current seatback phones except you can take calls too).

Re:Pretty expensive uplink costs

[razmaspaz]

Connectivity can be purchased on a metered basis for $9.95 for the first 30 minutes and 25 cents for each additional minute

Ok, $9.95/30 mins = ~$0.33/min. I want to go straight to the per minute option of $0.25.

Well, no I don't its still a friggin rip off.

Unless you're flying with a convention of mimes...

[Anonymous Coward]

just imaging trying to think with 200 stuttering zombies around you chatting about nothing

The airplane is one of my last refuges, keep it sacred!!

why bother

[fadethepolice]

just use ip telephony. just a way for them to fight the inevitable loss of market share. hack your matrix www.asdreams.org

loud mouth jackass alert

[sageFool]

I for one hope that it stays silly expensive to make a call from a plane. Since if it is cheap or free we all know that the percentage of the population that feels the need to talk at thrice the normal volume when talking on a cell phone ("'cause dat other person is way over yonder") will promptly take to sitting in all available seats around us. Oh god!

Happens to a friend of mine too..

[FirstNoel]

His Monitor starts going nuts a few seconds before the cell phone rings. It's weird when you see it happen.

Sean D.

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[kasperd]

His Monitor starts going nuts a few seconds before the cell phone rings.

The exact same thing happened with my old cell phone and my old monitor, but only if the cell phone was lying on the table where it would be about 20 cm from the monitor. Obviously this means, the phone must know the call is comming, then why doesn't it start ringing until a few seconds later?

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[jwthompson2]

The tower is probably asking the phone to return some information before connecting the call. Some sort of handshaking system I would imagine to make sure the call is connected to the right phone....

That'd be my guess.

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[jcuervo]

Heard about this happening to a guy I work with. Monitor would go apeshit before the phone rang. My phone sort of does it, too, with the speakers; you can hear calls/text messages coming in a few seconds before the phone actually does anything, like ring. Sounds sort of like morse code. (Heh.)

Good thing I got those flatscreens...

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[metlin]

Happens on almost all HP Notebooks that I've seen so far.

My HP Pavilion has weird interference on the LCD (very minor - you can see it only if your screen is set to black), and it makes a very unique noise when there is any cellphone activity (incoming calls/messages/whatever).

We've this augmented reality setup for a class, and the (HP) notebooks in the lab have the same problem too. What we did notice later on was that, this even affected our actual ARD recordings - I'm guessing perhaps the equipment used are sensitive to this sort of thing.

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[mpe]

The exact same thing happened with my old cell phone and my old monitor, but only if the cell phone was lying on the table where it would be about 20 cm from the monitor. Obviously this means, the phone must know the call is comming,

The network is interrogating the phone to check if it is there and has sufficent signal strength to be able to accept the call.

Re:Happens to a friend of mine too..

[pyser]

Get this - I was on the train the other day with my 2-meter HT, scanning around on the simplex frequencies, and I heard a carrier come up with a blast of data around 146.60 just as the cell phone of the passenger in the next row started to ring. I thought that was weird, since cellphones use frequencies in the 800MHz range, but it must have been intermod between his phone and someone else's phone, or his phone and his Bluetooth. Never quite figured it out.

cell phones aren't near obnoxious enough

[kjamez]

frankly, that's the last thing we need. maybe wireless internet in airplanes would be a good thing, but in such close quarters, do you really really want to be sitting next the bad smelling fat lady with the hairy mole holder her arm UP to make idle chitchat with her friend sitting at home watching jerry springer on their cell phones, because, well, they are 'IN'. shudder.

Re:cell phones aren't near obnoxious enough

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Where the fuck are you flying to/from?

Re:cell phones aren't near obnoxious enough

[kjamez]

i can't belive that was modded 'troll' ... opinion, but no troll. humph.

my most recent flight involved a screaming child and a obese mother sitting behind me, kicking and pushing my seat. that's never happened to ANYONE on /.? seriously ... just would you want that loud business guy talking into his cell the whole flight while you sitting, crammed next to him, are trying to [read/sleep/code/etc]?

troll i am not.

opinionated, i am.

A brief scenario

[ArmenTanzarian]

There's always that one lady with the super high-pitched voice and horrible accent (I'm picturing Fran Drescher) who just has to talk about something horrifically mindless. She's been on planes before, but decorum was preserved by the fact that her friend fell asleep with all the other normal people. Now she can ring up her equally annoying family and drone on through every time zone, I can't wait...

Re:A brief scenario

[duckpoopy]

No doubt this conversation will be on a "push to talk" basis, so you can hear the other party, and that annoying beebeebeebeep between sentences.

no, god. please no.

[happyfrogcow]

FFS, minus the infrequent emergency use of cellphones on airplanes, please keep them out. All i need is that group of kids on my plane to be talking insanely loud to their friends on their cellphones. We've made out well without cellphones on airplanes for several decades of flying. we don't need them now.

It's just a matter of time before the cellphone companies make cellphones somehow work on the subways. It's going to be so damn annoying the day that happens.

Re:no, god. please no.

[UndercoverParrothead]

It's just a matter of time before the cellphone companies make cellphones somehow work on the subways. I can't speak for other cities, but in DC there is adequate cell coverage through a majority of the Metro system.

Re:no, god. please no.

[CastrTroy]

We also made out well without the internet for quite a while before the 1970's. I think we should get rid of that too. Also, things like computers, cars, telephones, and flush toilets. Why do we need all these new fangled things.

Re:no, god. please no.

[Arch_dude]

SUre. the same pico-cell technology that works on planes can work on trains, busses, and subways. The advantages to the system operator are big enough that they need not charge more for this service. Baseically, throws a fairly large burden on the system when a bunch of people move between two cells at the same time. The pico-cell uses a different up-link (varying with type of pico-cell) to connect the entire passenger load to a single location. The phone owner benefits by better call quality, much longer battery life, and less radio energy in the environment.

Re:no, god. please no.

[MichiganDan]

Verizon put towers (I guess you can call them that) in most of the tunnels a couple of years back. When I lived in DC ages ago (2000), you couldn't use you phone on the Metro... and it was bliss.

Of course, which line was the last to get Verizon's super-swell underground towers? The Green Line, of course, connecting black Washington to poor Washington.

Hopefully, airlines will use something similar to British "quiet coaches" where cell phone use is banned.

Re:no, god. please no.

[Dr. Evil]

The airlines could test the markets... "cellular section" and a "no cellular section". Just like "wailing child section" and a "no wailing child section".

Toddlers are the worst. Some f-ing numbnuts came up with the idea that they shouldn't have their own seat. Have you ever seen a person try to hold down a three year old during takeoff? Have you sat next to them? I mean, your ears six inches from the toddler's face? Being spat on and scratched as the toddler tries desparately to escape his mother's grasp?

Then when the meals are served, when you're belted in and trapped under your meal tray as the toddler (with no seat) stands in front of his mother, flailing his arms in the three inches of space, pushing over drinks and slapping the tray.

It's a stupid situation to put the kid, their mother and other passengers in.

On my subsequent flight, I asked if I could be seated away from any toddlers. The person working the seating arrangement just gave me a dirty look then nodded blankly.

I mean even if you had a toddler-section (e.g. designate a set of bulkhead seats...) then somebody who really doesn't want to be around them during a flight, would only have themselves to blame for not arranging their seat well enough ahead of time... unless there are just too many toddlers.

Soul Plane.

[themassiah]

Please see this movie for an approximation of what will happen if you use your cell phones during a flight.
Look about 80 percent into the trailer. Beware, QuickTime required.

Re:Soul Plane.

[themassiah]

A link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/soul_plane/large .html

Advertising Slogan...

[kelseyj]

Let your fingers do the flying...

But that's my quiet time

[Wiseazz]

Seriously. I enjoy not being hassled by clients, etc. for those hours that I'm flying. I also like not having to listen to OTHER people gabbin' on the phone.

Just relax... Read a book. Listen to some music (softly).

Re:But that's my quiet time

[gevmage]

Yes, but the beauty of it is, you don't have to answer. The phone is your servant, you are NOT its.

Re:But that's my quiet time

[Wiseazz]

It's not the phone... just the people on the other end.

The good thing is, I don't answer it when I'm at home.

Moronic Title

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

Please, for the love of fuck and people that you don't want to die, DO NOT put shit like that as a title. Half-wit, uber-13373, i'm-in-a-muthafuckin-rush-and-am-cooler-and-more-i mportant-than-the-world morons will read that and use whatever phone they happen to have on hand as the plane is in the last seconds of landing run in instruments only weather.

Nice.

Great

[trippy]

Now i get to listen to people blabbing about crap for the duration of the flight without chance of them shutting up so i can get some sleep or do some work. Its bad enough having to wait by some one making phone calls and screaming into their phone at the terminals because they have their volume down.

Revenge will not be sweet...

[SysPig]

For any of you rude, obnoxious business-types thinking I'll sit idly by, listening to your inane jabber on a cross-country flight should this retarded idea ever hit US planes, I have news for you.

I'll do my best to produce a natural counter-strike, but should the airline food not be sufficient, I'll have no qualms with delivering a debilitating direct blow to the noise source with Fart Spray. You have been warned.

Innocent affected bysitters: I know you'll support me in my efforts, keeping in mind the greater good the few minutes of unpleasantness will result in.

picocell?

[HawkinsD]

Picocell? Man, that's a stupid word. Some marketing droid decided that if the "nano-" prefix was hot, then "pico-" would be hotter.

Hey, who wants to talk on my femto-phone?

Douchebags.

Re:picocell?

[MC_Cancer_Pants]

Nanocells already exist.

Naming a new technology the same name as it's predescessor is a good way to not sell technology.

Nooooooooo!!!!!

[Le Marteau]

That is a truly AWFUL suggestion! I can see it right now... New York to Los Angeles - hour after hour of listening to some type A-hole suspender jockey with a Gordon Gekko haircut go on and on about the back nine he shot yesterday with Wilson, and how the buy-back offer is on the table, and how his son Joshua is doing at Montessori - I would have to tear an artery out of my wrist with my bare teeth to find ultimate relief from that living hell.

Re:Nooooooooo!!!!!

[Thud457]

Murder is always preferable to suicide in such a case.

No jury in the world would convict you.

Re:Nooooooooo!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse the ignorance, what style is a Gordon Gekko haircut? WTF is Gordon Gekko? Should I have to worry that I do not know the (I assume) gentleman???

Re:Nooooooooo!!!!!

[Le Marteau]

Gordon Gekko was a character in Oliver Stone's movie, "Wall Street". He wore his hair greasy and slicked back, in a style favored by some businessmen.

Re:Nooooooooo!!!!!

[griffjon]

I want a portable solution that convinces cell phones they're out-of-range for a 30' radius around me.

(Well, as long as /my/ phone is uneffected.)

(joke)

Yeah, I'd prefer if we keep airplanss cell free, for the annoyance factor. Perhaps if the picocell is sufficiently highly priced, includes 911 capabilities, and GPRS-or-better Internet capabilities, it'd be alright, reducing the chatter but enabling 'emergency' and perceived emergency calls?

As for the people complaining about the airplane being your only refuge, there's another -- TURN OFF YOUR GODDAMNED PHONE. It's easy, it's addictive.

What if...

[PsiPsiStar]

What if didn't have to turn off your mobile phone when you travel by air?

What if didn't have to reread submissions before posting to Slashdot?

hint, buy the flight insurance...

[Anonymous Coward]

The FIRST RULE of Project Mayhem is "Don't talk about Project Mayhem!!!

Why you can't use Cell Phones on Airplanes

[dostert]

I thought it was not a "danger" in a sense to the airplane itself. I thought it was more of a cellphone provider problem. The way it has been explained to me is that if you're 10K ft in the air, you're approximately equidistant from hundreds of different cellphone towers at any given instant. If you were to use your cell phone, all of these towers would try to connect you. Having five or six planes in a given area, you can clog up the network very quickly. Anyone else ever heard of this as the REAL difficulty??

Interference with speakers

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in an apartment building, and everytime my cell phone rings I get a repetitive tapping sound from my speakers about 2 seconds prior. Stereo speakers, TV spearkers, Computer Speakers, all of them. My TV also gets lines through it. This also happens when my neighbors receive calls.

So for those of you who say that cell phones don't cause interference, I say you're wrong.

Re:WiFi in the air

[platypussrex]

Actually, this is already in testing. Lufthansa is rolling out service on many of its jets, and I'm sure others will follow it it's profitable.

9-11

[starman71taylor]

Well hmmm, I believe you what I find interesting though is that's what we are all supposed to believe about people in planes on 9-11. That they made CELL PHONE calls to family and friends... Of course that seems and probably is impossible. On another note, how would CNN or news agency have gotten info on those "calls" so quickly? Any ideas Slashdoters?

Re:9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the calls were made on the in-flight phone service thingies. Could be what they meant. Why all the conspiracy theories about 9/11? Is it really so hard to believe that it was Osama Bin Laden's organisation or are you just a racist that can't believe Arabs could pull something like this off?

Re:9-11

[starman71taylor]

Lettme see....first your comment about racism is absurd. Second, it should not be a question of conspiracy "theories" surrounding 9-11, rather conspiracy FACT since 9-11 occurred. Deciding whether the "official" story is true or not is quite a different endeavour altogether. I believe that the reports actually made allusions to cell phone calls and not in-flight phones. Regardless it's always seemed rather odd that terrorists would have let anybody make phone calls in the first place, for fear of being shot down and ruining their missions. Just think about the facts a little harder and tougher questions keep coming up...

Re:9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad (a pilot) and I were talking about cell phones on planes over spring break (you guessed it, on a plane), and we came to the conclusion / assumption that cell phone towers probably point down, to avoid any confusion about one phone being in LOS with many towers. As soon as the plane goes above the highest tower, service would presumably end, and thus the AirPhones become a monopoly (even though no one uses them, thank God). Anyway, a cell phone call would probably be impossible to make from a plane normally, but when a plane is travelling at 1000 ft above sea level instead of the normal cruising altitude of 31,000, cell phones would have no problem working again.

Re:9-11

[cpeterso]

And now you know WHY those airplanes crashed..

Re:9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me your Dad isn't an airline pilot. If there really are pilots that clueless, I'm never, ever flying again.

AirPhones became a monopoly because cell phones didn't work?

A plane six miles up is too far away from the ground for a cell signal to reach?

Cell phone towers point "down"?

Ugh.

Interference?

[bsd4me]

There was an article in IEEE Spectrum about this a few years ago. I would post the results, but (1) I forget what the article said, and (b) I am lazy.

Re:Interference?

[normal_guy]

Somebody mod parent up informative! Way to contribute.

Re:Interference?

[bsd4me]

If anyone cares and has access to back issues, this appears to be the issue (Sep 1996) I was thinking about.

just like on the ground

[Anonymous Coward]

"What if....?" then I'd have to listen to idiots talking on their cell phones all the freakin' time.
Just like on the ground, I'd find out way more about the man or woman sitting next to me than I want to know. At least on the ground in the airport you can get up and find another seat.

Actually, they can

[geekoid]

I know someone whose job it is to call cell telephone manufactures when they confiscate cell phones.

If you use a cell phone, and it interferes with the controlls(auto pilot) the airline will buy your phone, then contact the fcc and the phone manufactures to complain that there phone is out side specs. It's not all phones, or even all the same model, just a 'bad' phone that came out of the line.

If you read the article you link to, you would have noticed that it does not say that they are safe.

Who Cares about Cell Phones?!

[pballsim]

Why can't I play my Game Boy Advance on take up on landing!

Plus I don't want to hear people talking on the planes. The ones that do (on the tarmac) are VERY loud, annoying and very rude. Every single one of them yells into the phone so everybody knows half the conversations.

Has anybody actually seen anybody use the phones in the airplane? I haven't, and I've been playing my whole life.

Re:Who Cares about Cell Phones?!

[huchida]

Why can't I play my Game Boy Advance on take up on landing!

Cell phone issues aside... They tell us that electronic devices like Game Boys, CD players and laptops will interefere with the plane's equiptment... Obviously, that's a load of crap... But it sounds better than "We need all of you sitting upright in your seats and paying attention because the highest likelihood of crashing is when we're taking off and landing."

Interesting...

[Sv-Manowar]

After reading an article about the ethernet ports installed in some airplanes now, and how they were soon going to install wireless internet which can be used for a flat fee before flight. I was wondering how the services (mobile, internet) actually stay on the plane, satelitte dishes or something similar?

Electromagnetic Interference is a real phenomenon

[Anonymous Coward]

Howstuffworks: I've noticed that I am not allowed to use my cell phone in airplanes or in hospitals. Why are these prohibitions in place?

ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE

Electromagnetic Interference with Aircraft Systems: why worry?

Maybe

[bsd4me]

I did some rough calculations a while ago, and consulted with some of my collegues (I used to do DSP and digicomm), and we came to the conclusion that it probably was true.

When you are on a plane the phone basically has line of sight to many cell towers. When you are on the ground you typically have line of sight to none. In fact, cell phones are designed to work without a line of sight component at the receiver (ie, Rayleigh model instead of Rician). LOS gives you a huge power advantage.

We suspect that even though the plane is travelling much faster than a car, than most towers have their AGC opened wide enough that with a LOS component, that Doppler could be handled.

You can already use your phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Many new phones have a "flight mode", where you can still take notes, play games, etc. But you can't send SMS or make phone calls.

Why?

[Axel2001]

I am getting tired of people constantly feeling the need to have and use cell phones. People have this psychological need, it seems, to always be "connected" somehow.

Personally, I would find that stressful. I like to be able to "disappear" and no one can contact me until I say so.

Now, before you respond that I can just cut my phone off, think about how many people are actually willing to do this...

I've heard someone talking on a cell in a public restroom while taking a dump. A big old noisy, stinky shit.

Now, I ask you: How dependant can you be that you can't even take a shit without talking on your phone?

Re:Why?

[cmpalmer]

I often fly through Atlanta when travelling and the flight from Huntsville (where I live) to Atlanta is about 35 minutes gate-to-gate (~20-25 minutes in the air).

I am always amazed at the type-A people who have their finger poised over the power button when the wheels hit the ground so they can get on the phone to talk business.

I'm not talking about the worried flyers who call their wife/mom/kids/whoever to say they've arrived safely, but the big deal makers suffering cell phone withdrawal after 30 minutes disconnection. These are usually the same people who have packed for a four day trip in oversized carry-on luggage because checking a bag would take too much time and they jump to their feet as the plane taxis up to the gate and grab their bags as if that is going to get them off the damned plane any quicker.

Sorry, had to rant (and I'm flying this weekend and already dreading it).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I make it a point to call my brother whenever I take a dump.

Don't ask.

Phones don't work in the air? 9/11 HELLO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Caller:
"there's a terrorist on the plane"

Well isn't that interesting. if cell phones don't work on planes (and they don't, by the way), How on earth did all those people manage to make calls to say there was a hijacking taking place?

The answer: They didn't make any calls because they COULDN'T

What does that say to you exactly?

THINK!, america! stop the hysteria and OPEN YOUR EYES

IM access

[deicide]

A United flight SFO-EWR flight I took a couple weeks ago allowed IM (AIM, MSN, ICQ and Y!) access for $5.99 for the duration of the flight. You connect your laptop to a phone line, dial up to any number and it connects. Their router then only allows IM traffic to the ground.

Brilliant! Why would I need to use a phone with some rediculous per-minute charge if I can chat with 5 people at once while in the air without disturbing other passengers nonetheless..

Email (POP3/SMTP) access was $20.

Re:IM access

[t_allardyce]

Thats the most wonderful business model ive ever heard of - charge for ports :P i hope you took advantage and tunneled web traffic through without paying?

GAAH! this will be awful

[goombah99]

So now in addition to have to sit next to sweaty bloated people with bad perfume, I will have to listen to a cabinful of loud talking idiots sucking up to some customer they want to squeeze. No thanks, I'd rather have cigar smoke that that.

Normal output?

[non-poster]

"Normal" power output is "just enough for the tower to hear you with a minimal error rate". Maybe the poster meant "power of 1/1000 the typical amount".

My CDMA phone adjusts its power level 400 times per second, I believe. If I am close enough to the cell to only require 0.1mW, then that's all my phone will transmit.

Typically, my phone probably puts out 10mW. But it is designed for power output in any amount below 200mW. (See this link)

Flight attendants: bring extra zip ties

[sulli]

to tie down all those yakkers who won't shut up.

Seriously. I use my phone and stuff, but can we have some peace and quiet anywhere these days?!

I don't get it...

[addie]

So you waste your batteries, don't use the phone, can't get service... But feel compelled to point out that you never turn it off? What good can that do?

I'm personally not scared of mobiles on planes, but breaking the rules just because you feel like it doesn't really benefit anyone.

Guns

[ballsmccoy]

Now we will really need to have pilots with guns.

How the hell else ya goin to keep ORDER when this shit hits the fan.

Nothing like turning an airplane into a fucking schoolbus. Talking on a cell-phone is not a requirement to live people.

I have never believed that the cell phone would take the plane down. I knew that it was half a billing issue with connecting to too many towers and half a lie of keep people off the damn things.

Heres to AIR RAGE. I see many a flight where people deplane in handcuffs. Lets just hope its a misdemeanor, becuase I'll be kicking some ass.

Pico-cells are great on the ground, too.

[Arch_dude]

There are two parts to this technology: the very low power to and from the phones relatively immobile phones (i.e.,the pico-cell,) and the sophisticated uplink. This particular uplink is sophisticated and is useful for aircraft. Forget it and concentrate on the pico-cell. I want one of these in my house, with an internet uplink via my broadband connection. Then, when someone calls me on my cell phone at home, I will have a consiten and reliable cell connection that does not depend on my (distant, overloaded) cell tower. Furthermore, I will be using pico-power, reducing the amount of environmental radio clutter in my house and in my neighborhood. Same at the office. My conpany could put in a pico-cell wiht more channels and support all the phones in the office. The wireless company could install pico-cells in hundreds of offices for the cost of a single cell tower, thus reducing demand on the cell towers. Major win-win for everybody. Of course, we may be able to get the saem effect with WIFI-enabled cell phones and sophisticated call forwarding.

Easy way to enforce these rules...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just drop the oxygen masks as soon as the plane takes off, and make everybody wear them for the entire flight.

Mile-High Toothing

[WhyPush]

Now anyone with a bluetooth phone will be able to go "toothing" on the plane! It's going to open a whole new generation to the club!

reduced power

[CaptainFrito]

Nothing wrong with reducing power if you don't need so much. Plenty of good reasons, like longer battery life, less dissipation in the cranium, blah, yadda, and so on.

But to suggest that cellphone power screws up airplane systems is, well, just plain silly. In the US, the FCC allows cell phone use until the door closes for departure, and on landing and taxing upon arrival. Now, since the plane doesn't know which way it's headed, it seems obvious that power and iterference issues are a diversion. The persistent rumor is that the airphone guys worked a political solution to their at-risk $1 a munite business.

The other obvious proof the real issue is financial/political is the couple-of-kilowatt cellphone tower at the airport. My geuss is these cell towers present just a tad bit more interference than your couple milliwatt cell phone. Add to that the unltrapowerful military radar and civilian radar found around airports, and every other source of radio transmission floating around in the ether these days. Cell phones crashing planes? Great, just let Al Kaida know, he (she? they?) can save a ton of cash not building bombs. Just ring up the seventy virgins and let em know you're on your way. Two birds, one stone.

But of course that's a ridiculous notion, otherwise the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers would have never made it to their targets. In the end, the issue is money and politics (as it always is). The interference issue is propaganda fed to the clueless nailbiters afraid that the kid with the gameboy in the next will crash the plane.

Re:reduced power

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite so silly when there is evidence to suggest that cell phones can be responsible (see cross air comments above).

They allow phone use until the doors close because it doesnt really matter if for example, your navigation heading gets screwed by a few degrees whilst sitting at the gate. Out over mid-atlantic its a different matter.

The couple-of-kilowatt towers at the airport you mention are *outside* the aircraft. The aircrafts skin acts as a faraday cage to keep external signals out of its internal systems.

Your phones signals are are bouncing around inside that cage, possibly interfering with who-knows-what systems inside the plane.

It isn't all just a conspiricy to keep you from yakking on your phone.

Re:reduced power

[CaptainFrito]

Nice try. If the airplane were a proper and effective Faraday Cage, your cell phone would not work at all. And not all radio waves are reflected infinitely, 'bouncing around', as you say; much is absorbed by the incident material. For the most part the airframe will act as a waveguide (at certain wavelengths) and the window openings as dipole antennas albeit with 90 degree polarization rotation vs a wire dipole. Granted, it's probably not the most efficient antenna in the world, but that's not the point. The airplane is not a EM shield but rather a propagating antenna structure. The point is that your Faraday Cage theory is flat-out bogus. No wonder you posted anonymously.

Beyond that, airplanes do not get their navigation data from inside the plane, where you purport all passenger cell phone energy bounces around. Plus, consider all the people who -- whoops -- forget to shut off their cell phones (which transmit even when you are not yakking). This is FAR from rare or occassional. I'd venture to say there are three or four on every single flight (rare is the flight where at 30,000 feet I don't catch someone shutting their's off, all red-faced and whatnot). Plus the cell phone towers do not just select parked airplanes. Their energy is absorbed and reflected by airplanes at all altitudes. Otherwise when the unfortunate people onboard those planes on 9/11 would never been able to call anyone.

Early tests of satellite TVRO digital signals, which use convolutional coding to correct errors were plaugued by random errors of unexpected signatures and had to adjust their interleaving rates because of passenger airliners passing overhead.

Furthermore, you are allowed to use your cell phone in a closed-up airplane in motion, so long as you are taxing back to the terminal (in the USA, anyway). How does your Farady Cage theory hold up to that fact? The plane is in motion at that point...

And it's not yakking on the phone they object to, it's yakking on a phone for which they get no share of the revenue. The real answer is shielding the navigation systems from external fields. Oh wait, they do that already. Nevermind.

Hurray! (sarcasm)

[Sargerion]

Oh, terrific. More idiots with their annoying, beeping cell phones talking like they think the phone is surrounded by a 5-foot lead wall. I hate cell phones, and especially people who use them for non-business or non-emergency related purposes. You can wait to talk to your freakin girlfriend or cat for five damn minutes, asshole. You don't need to talk to them RIGHT NOW!!! For business use, this would rock, but otherwise this is going to be stupid.

Re:Hurray! (sarcasm)

[ballsmccoy]

Maybe you have to talk to your girlfriend all the time in order to keep her from fucking someone else while you are away. OR, she likes the sound of your voice while shes got another man's dick in her.

Needless to say, if your have got to talk to your girlfriend every five minutes on the cell, kick that bitch to the curb.

Re:Hurray! (sarcasm)

[SnappleMaster]

Damn! How do you train a cat to answer the phone? My cats are too stupid to do anything beyond eat, sleep, and poop.

coming soon to a plane near you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you hear me now? Good!

Wifi on planes.

[Cow007]

For a long time there have been ports on thoes air phones that you can illegidley plug into and dial up to the net. Woulden't it be a good idea to have airport and other 802.2 b/g cards for laptops and pdas to be faa certified for use on aircraft. It would be the best way for travelers to connect to the net seamlessly inside an airplane. Attn: Jet Blue!!

Happens on some new phones

[Anonymous Coward]

My (reasonably new) Sony Ericsson T616 does exactly the same thing with speakers nearby. Like a click-click-click sort of noise when a call is coming in, and also at random 'handshaking' times.

Bitch Bitch Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

If other human beings conversing bothers you that much, why are you people in public anyway?

Trains, planes

[mbstone]

Before you wish for cell phones on planes, take a train sometime.

hi! guess what! my cell phone works on the train! but it never seems to work quite right unless i yell into it!!

Better way...

[Duhavid]

*Dont* drop the oxy masks, but dont pressurize the cabin. They will all be out soon after, what, about 12k feet or so?

Low tech solutions!

Not a huge fan...

[Renaissance 2K]

I don't think I'm in favor of letting people have cell phones on flights unless there's a designated "cell phone" lounge like they have on some trains. I don't want to be stuck on a 12-hour international flight with some teeny bopper screeching random nothings from the seat in front of me. Plus, I would hate to see what a pack of terrorists would do with that sort of technology enabled. If you want my opinion, take all that energy and use it to put a WiFi network on a plane. That would be money well spent.

Cell Phone interference

[benzeen]

considering many of us forget to turn off our cell phones in theaters and the like, i wonder what the number is for the amount who forget to do so when getting on a plane (or before liftoff).

if the number is as high as i would imagine it to be, then i'd have to disagree to the amount of interference that takes place.

picocells and power

[bob_jenkins]

These picocells sound like useful things for houses and cars and office buildings, too. Save cellphone battery and reduce the amount of radiation going through your head.

Re:Unless you're flying with a convention of mimes

[lucabrasi999]

just imaging trying to think with 200 stuttering zombies around you chatting about nothing

I don't have to imagine it, I have it happen every day at the office.

girlfriend?

[Anonymous Coward]

A /. reader with a girlfriend. Way to go dude. I knew you were out there somewhere.

The old smokin days

[Anonymous Coward]

Back,

When they actually allowed you to light up a cigarette on a plane they usually had a section at the back of the A/C for smokers.

With any luck we could see the rear of the A/C reserved for cell-users (or was that cell-losers).

Cell Reception

[Anonymous Coward]

Through personal experience of utilizing a cell phone in small planes ranging in altitude from 1500 feet to 10000 feet, I have found that the cell phones do not work. They seem to be provided with too many options of transmition towers and confuse themselves into a constantly searching mode. This intern runs the battery power down at an accelerated rate. The article does not metion this situation and if it is a problem or not in the European market.

The "money shield" (Gizmodo)

[ajsnow]

Gizmodo ran this story a few weeks ago. Still seems like the best take on the situation ...

FRIDAY, MAR 26 2004
In-Flight WiFi Suddenly Safe

Boeing has developed a special system that protects airplane avionics from interference from passengers' WiFI devices using a special 'money shield.' By offering airline passengers its unlimited internet access 'Connexion' at rates between $9.95 and $29.95, Boeing is able to generate a 'Profit/Safety Phase Array,' suspending the effects of any previously claimed dangers from in-flight WiFI use by harnessing proven economic principle. The service is scheduled to start on Lufthansa flights at the end of April.

Cell phone calls on 911 from United Flight 93

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell Phones Provide Link to Hijacked Planes

10Meters News Roundup

Sept. 12, 2001 - Cell phone calls provided glimpses of the terrifying ordeal aboard two of the doomed commerical jetliners used to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday.

"We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked!" a passenger - locked in a bathroom - on United Flight 93 told a 911 dispatcher.

http://www.10meters.com/centercellphones.html

Flight 93 had picocells i guess.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your cell phone like normal? Isn't that what some people on the hijacked planes did? Except your cellphone shouldn't work at 30,000 feet. http://physics911.org/net/modules/xfsection/articl e.php?page=1&articleid=1

plane != free society

[IncohereD]

As aptly demonstrate recently, a plane is not 'free society.' They can deny travel for any number of reasons, and kick you off if you misbehave.

If too many of their customers are annoyed they'll lose business. So it's in the airlines interest to not have people annoyed on their flight.

Just like if I'm sitting in McDonald's and someone's being a drunken jackass, I'd like for them to be kicked out and not ruin my 'classy date'.

Mile High Club?

[OzeBuddha]

Sorry, had to be said.

Nowhere is safe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great - yet another chance to listen to one half of someone else's annoying phone conversation. If you are so insecure that you need your electronic umbilical cord everywhere you go, stay home.