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

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

[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.

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.

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.

[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.

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: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?

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: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.