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?

[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?

[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?

[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.)

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

[fatray]

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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: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: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.

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?!