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?

[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?

[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?

[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!)

Huh?

[xSquaredAdmin]

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

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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:Too complicated

[Blimey85]

One word, incoming telephone calls.

Fscking metric system.