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Cellphones Usable on Airplanes in 2006?
JOhn-E G writes "In a recent article from the New York Times it seems that airlines and cellphone makers are working towards allowing cellphones to be used on airplanes during flight. (free reg. required) Currently the plan is to have a mini cell tower, a picocell, on the plane that would intercept all the calls from people in the plane and relay them to satelites or ground towers. The FAA, FCC, and the airlines really want to be absolutely sure that there will be no interference anywhere. The article also says that cell use may still be banned during landings just to be safe. Changes would start in 2006."
Maybe I can use my ogg player during takeoff and landing sometime in 2010.
I wonder: 1. If it will be free 2. If it will work with all cell phone carriers. If they are gonan charge 30 buvks for a call, then screw it
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
cellphones bans are for safety not interference
Less than two years away I wonder how good of reception i will get 1 mile up? Not to mention how much the roaming charges will be.
More inane chatter. Mile high was one place where you were safe for a while from all the i-have-got-to-talk-on-my-cell-phone people. Damn.
Free XBox, PS2
And I the passenger don't care. Ok, maybe I care a little.
I don't know, is it really that important to stay "in touch" with friends, family, or work over the duration of a flight? I would think that most flights are 3 hours or less as this will pretty much get you across NA, or Europe. Longer flights certainly happen on a regular basis, but I just don't see it being necessary to be available or be in contact for the duration of a flight.
Yeah, this is just going to be another crying baby on a cramped 5 hour flight. I wish they'd keep it how it is.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
Hmm, I could have sworn that cellphones worked already from airplanes. That is at least what the government and media told us after 911 with quite a few calls made from soon to be downed planes. Makes you wonder how that happened??
it's annoying enough that people talk loudly on their cell phones in resaurants etc.. can you imagine a flight with 200 people all talking on cell phones?
the horror the horror the horror
they will have to have cell phone sections on the plane. cell phones will be this generations cigarettes.
I've never been convinced that the 300mW that a cell phone puts out can cause any harm. If it could there would have already been catastrophies caused by people who ignored the rules or simply forgot to turn their phones off.
. . . how much will they charge us for allowing us to use our phones?
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
I'll be dreading the day this happens. Most people talk quite a bit more loudly when they are using a cell phone. I've also noticed that many people like to engage inane phone conversations when they have nothing else to do. I guess we can look forward to three hours of constant chatter. I can also imagine we'll be hearing that loud beep the nextel phones make.
Oh well. Maybe we'll have free WIFI on planes at some point soon, too.
Yours sure was!
According to this movie, you already can use mobile phones on planes and the only reason you're not allowed to is because airline companies want to charge you more to use their phone services! Then again, it does have a fear of flying class fight off a hijacker, then drop a bioweapon into the sea next to a major U.S. city in order to "defuse" it, so perhaps I can't count 100% on its accuracy.
I'm interested to see how this will work. Currently there are two big cellular standards: GSM and CDMA. GSM seems like the more viable choice, as it is used globally (three GSM nets in US, also), but many americans use CDMA carriers like sprint/verizon/alltel/etc. For either, I assume it would be just like hitting a roaming partner and associating with their network, but I wonder how they will prevent people from just using land-based carriers, assuming range permits this.
unzip; strip; touch; grep; mount; fsck; yes; more; fsck; umount; make clean; sleep
Would this have anything in common with something i read somewhere about cell phones being usable on cruise ships?
it's a menace to itself and everything else in the air...
yes, birds too.
CDMA as it is right now has up to a 4 second connection time. I cannot imagine how long it will take from a plane. Does this picocell interface with VLRs, HLRs, and everything else???
I can see it now, on one of my long haul flights from Hong Kong to Europe, middle of the night (relatively speaking), dog tired, almost drifting off to sleep, when someone's phone, in outdoor/loud haler cheesy Auld Lang Syne mode, rings, and some Chinese dude bellows:
"Wei! Wei! Wei wei wei wei......."
Oh yes, we're talking a barrel of laughs.
YOU, yes, YOU, FAIL IT! hahahahahahahahahahaha you so 5700|*1|)!
for those worried about being surrounded by planeful of people talking on their phones - bring an portable mp3 player, or some noise-cancelling headphones.
Another reason for passengers in coach to be even more annoying.
will they make the captain use a hands free headsets so they are less likely to get distracted and get in an accident?
This is such bullshit. Everyone knows that cellphones don't interfere with airport communications. When cellphone makers make phones they have to be FCC approved and that includes complying with the FCC regulations for whatever device you want approval for. Same goes for the equipment used by the airports.
Great plan, but you know it won't be long before they tack on a $10-per-call 'Roaming' charge to your cell use..... It would be interesting it it indeed was 'free'.... Hmmm, on that note, wonder if it will be CDMA/TDMA or GSM -- GPRS at 30,000 would be cool!
that would intercept all the calls from people in the plane
Are we going to see the same VoIP wire-tapping requirements applied to planes? At least under the current system, there aren't "minicells" to intercept cell signals. Next, we'll see planes flying abnormally low over cities and countries like iran.
public int post () { return 1+post(); }
Frankly I think they should ban it anyways during landings - it's not like anyone *has* to be on the phone during that *exact* time that they're landing.
I thought it was pretty common to use a cell phone as part of the detonation device in bombs. You can make the call from anywhere in the world, and it's basically untraceable with a minimum of effort... now we want to make it easy for that bomb signal to come in with full connection bars? Great.
"Let's roll."
Safety...due to a lack of interference. The fear of the FAA & Airlines is that the cell phones' emissions will interfere with the compass and other electomagnetic/electromechanical functions of the aircraft.
An airplane is one of the last places I don't have to listen to some asshole yell "I told him- I- I- HOLD ON, YOU"RE BREAKING UP!"
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
I thought you could use those resourceful things anywhere ... ;)
---
But on the serious side, what about WiFi on airplanes? I heard that was supposed to come out soon on Boeing planes ...
See it w/o giving your first borny /circu its/02next.html?ex=1251777600&en=1cb1803faa02fdd0& ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technolog
This interfrience crap needs to go. If people are allowed to carry devices on airplanes that enable them to crash the plane due to negelent or bad intentions I suggest the TSA needs to consficate the trouble some devices during flight operations. BUT guess what this is all crap.. if the planets align, the sun spots hit and we get are in a ION storm, thne you migth be able to slightly confuse the ILS systsem that were phased out in the 70's. The real reason they want tell us to turn off the cellphones is as you hope between cells at 300mph they really freak out and waste bandwidth during negations, you leave a trial contexts that need to be cleand up later. But as we saw three years ago, it wasnt the cell phones crashing planes into buildings, infact they seemed to work just fine during flight operations. If RF is so dangerous they should wrap the passenger compartment with copper mesh,ground it.. and watch the RF fall to nothing. But guess what they will never remove take your cell phone during travel becouse its really not a problem. And they wont protoect the plane from RF becouse in reality all of those devices that we are told we must turn off dont emit enough RF to cause any problems. Its obvoius if finger nail clippers are band becouse they are so dangerous...but cell phones and laptops that produce RF that can bring down the plain.. well those we just ask you nicely to turn off at the right times.
The airlines have huge restrictions on the passengers electronic devices. On a flight (United i believe) a flight attendant told me to put away a GPS. For anyone who doesent understand basic GPS tech, the GPS recieves signals from satelites and from the timing of the signals triangulates your position. There is absoutley no outgoing radio on most GPSs. I've left the wi-fi on on my laptop loads of times and we havent crashed.
OK, I expect a new technology. You did too -- right? Seems like we believe the airlines and the FAA and/or FCC when they tell us that cellphones can interfere with airplane communication and/or navigation systems (anything's possible right? can't be too careful at 20k ft. right?)
But then I read:
Until now, there have been concerns that cellphone use during flight could disrupt cell networks or interfere with the plane's navigation systems. The F.C.C., which has jurisdiction over ground communication, forbids the use of cellphones in flight out of concern that passengers calling from the air could overwhelm the nation's system of cell towers. That policy is currently under review and is likely to be modified this October, according to Lauren Patrich, an F.C.C. spokeswoman.
Whoah -- "until now?" The "policy is currently under review and is likely to be modified this October?" OMGWTFBBQ?
But alas, it's not that simple:
For its part, the F.A.A., which governs in-flight communications, recommends that airlines forbid the use of any device - including cellphones and pagers - that transmits signals, because of the risk of interference.
Woot! Administrative deathmatch -- FCC vs. FAA! Who will win!? Are you rrrready to tuuuune-to-this-freeeeequency?
Two newly proposed solutions will allow passengers to use their own cellphones to place calls in flight in a way that their makers say addresses both concerns. Unlike the current seat-back phone system, airlines will not have to pay for costly interior wiring. Instead, a small cell tower, known as a picocell, will be installed inside the cabin. Cellphone signals will be picked up by that cell, and then, depending on the system, relayed either first to a satellite or directly to the ground.
What's that? Not just a policy revision. Sigh. Actually a technological product that might prevent the FCC/FAA battle from ever taking place? Say it aint so . .
AirCell of Louisville, Colo., a large provider of in-flight communications services, has proposed a system that would bypass existing cellphone towers on the ground and direct calls instead to a separate grouping of receivers installed throughout the country. Equipment inside the plane would effectively create a cabin-wide hot spot handling voice and Internet communications.
Bah, it's true. They have a sufficiently expensive product to but that will allow them to charge sufficiently high fees so that we don't all ever have to know the truth about whether or not calling your sweetie from 30k ft. will crash the plane and they can still charge $5/min for airtime and the FCC doesn't have to kick the FAA's ass in public and all is well.
The AirCell system can handle any of the three digital phone standards in use by the American carriers: C.D.M.A., T.D.M.A. or G.S.M. Signals from each phone would be received by the plane's picocell, and then translated into one digital signal that would be sent to one of AirCell's terrestrial receivers. (To keep costs down, those receivers could be situated next to ones operated by cellphone carriers.) The signals would be separated and sent to the customer's carrier for routing and billing.
"Keep costs down." Did you see what he did there? He made you think they really want to keep costs down. Because it's worth it to take a percentage of smaller number if the average guy gets a break!
The system is designed to be able to transmit signals a distance of 50,000 feet, and hand them off from one ground receiver to the next while a caller is moving at 600 miles per hour. Because of the height at which planes fly, only 150 cell sites will be needed to provide coverage across the continental United States, according to Jack Blumenstein, AirCell's chief executive officer.
150 x what, $15 million? $10 million? I have no idea. But I bet the break-even point is at about 200 phone-fligh
everything in moderation
That should be fun for Nextels, I usually get 30-40 seconds of "Please hold while the subsciber is located" as it is, I can't imagine adding aircraft.
Hello, 911? The guy that sits after me looks suspicious, I think he is a terro...
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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There have already been a few posts about how annoying it will be to listen to people talking on their phones in the plane. What alarms me is the opening paragraph of the article: "Business travelers who think there are not enough hours in the day, take note: in two years there may be a few more at your disposal." It reminds me of a TIME article I read a while ago that speculated that since the 1970s, the only real change technical innovations have made to our lives is to end the way in which our lives are tethered to our work. Not many new appliances like washing machines that make work more convenient have emerged but what we do have, i.e. the Internet/email and mobile phones/pagers, are claimed to make it so easy to keep in touch with work that your workday certainly doesn't end once you leave the office and probably never really ends at all. If we've already lost home as a sanctuary from work, the airplane is probably one of the last places where we are out of touch enough to get some sleep or actually relax. So will allowing phone usage on planes have a positive effect on our lives? Referring to the regular business travellers mentioned in the article, Will it improve their productivity or will it just remove the last place they could rest and hence in the end actually damage their productivity by damaging their health?
Mastah! Your intelligence, it blinds us! Yesss.
Oh holy one! I'm so enlightened! Bless us, please!!!! Yes, yes! Bless us, mastah! Your Fu is strong, indeed.
the phones will still be eminating the same radio signals. IOW, it would interfere with the equipment wether it was talking to the pico cell or the land based 7 mile cells. So I wonder what is different ? Profits anyone?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
My understanding of one of the primary issues surrounding cellphone use in aircraft (that the picocell would address) is that lack of ground-based signal obstruction gave cellphones fairly long range in the air, and that range confused towers, made hand-offs nearly impossible to co-ordinate, and caused a huge headache for billing (eg: what cell was he actually in, which carrier was he roaming to, etc).
-Matt
Cell phones crash planes when you want them to, and don't crash planes when you don't want them to. Proof: 1) Cell phone use by passengers saved the White House on September 11th. Passengers were able to learn what happened at the World Trade Center, and correctly deduced that the plane was going to be used as a weapon. This is actually a security measure. Cell phones in the hands of passengers is the best chance that NORAD has of learning that a plane has been hijacked before it can be used to hit anything. 2) Cell phones are constantly, constantly being left on accidentally in flight (along with Wifi laptops, etc.) If this could bring down a plane, they would be falling out of the sky left and right. In the 21st Century, the only way to be safe is to build a plane that is immune to cell phone interference. Anything less is delusional folly.
The FAA, FCC, and the airlines really want to be absolutely sure that there will be no interference anywhere. The article also says that cell use may still be banned during landings just to be safe.
It seems that the stewardess will still make me turn off my graphing calculator before takeoff.
Seriously, I though all electronics were tested for interference in important bands. There is a little FCC logo on my VCR. Isn't what that means?
If there were a real safety concern, do you really think they'd let them on that planes at all? Geez, they'll take away anything they think can be used to take down a plane. If a cell phone could cause a problem, there's no way in hell they'd be allowed today.
This is banned for some other reason they're not sharing with us - and it probably has to do with the ridiculous fees they get today if you need to make a call.
I can see it now people gabbing away the whole flight. What if I have a transcontinental flight? Even with my headphones on and volume up I still wont be able to drown out some peoples volumnous voices and hysterical laughter.
Once you allow cell phones they will have to make it available at take off and landing, I can already see people that will make a big fuss when asked to turn it off while take off or landing.
Definitely a bad concept for a cranky flier like me.
From this FAA web page:
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
I can't believe you'd refer to a date in the second person.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
The captain has turned on the no talking sign. Shut the hell up. Please return your mouths to an upright and locked position.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The restroom lines are going to be really long in 2006...
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Need I say more?
So presumably the presence of a pico-cell will reduce the RF output of the phones to a fair degree, and probably also prevent them from screwing up the ground stations as they are overflown.
One potential problem is that airline cabins are LOUD--most people adapt and don't realize this, but it will probably be hard to hear and people will probably compensate by shouting into the phones. I suppose the airlines will find a way to have over-the-top roaming charges which might reduce in-flight use a little bit, and there's always text messaging.
Maybe this will quell the hysteria about electronics on flights. Ever been asked to 'turn off your gameboy' during takeoff and landing? They asked me to turn off my mp3 player too.
I would think they see GBAs so often that it wouldn't be a stretch to have them say "Oh, it's just a Gameboy. 's all good."
Granted, it wasn't the end of the world. But it wasn't what I wanted to do either.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
Which one are they going to support?
Whoa there, chester!
If the plane flew over the whitehouse it would be shot down. Just shot down.
Help I'm a rock.
Funny that a post titled Interesting is modded Insightful.
/had to be said
*Ahem* There's one big, huge, gaping problem with your intial assertion... Interfering with the radio communications between the tower and the jet does not automatically "crash planes".
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I, for one, welcome our new picocell overlords.
As a Clickable link.
I am prone to delusions and halucinations, so I could be wrong, but...I recall reading an article where Boeing had tested the effects of cell phones on modern airliners, and found that they had ZERO effect whatsoever. But that is not consistent with what others are saying here. I would search around the Internet for it, but I'm too lazy. Perhaps someone else can...
Yes, I carry a cell, but I barely use it at all. Maybe 3-4 times a week on average, and the calls are of the "Where are you?" or "Pick item X up" type. I don't yell when I use it, and I try not to talk when there's other people around. I figure if I don't want to have to listen to their crap, I can at least not be hypcritical and isolate myself before calling.
(-:Stephonovich:-)
"Who needs reincarnation when we've got parallel universes?" -Me
Now the pilots can chit-chat with their friends on the phone for the whole flight. Just like four out of five idiots driving around Atlanta. I can hardly wait!
K.C.
... Not on the newer planes, at least. In more than one flight, I've noticed that stewards and stewardesses went precisely to the seat where someone had left their cellphone on, before takeoff, when that person had not been using it. They didn't even glance in the other aisles.
On the other hand, I've seen jerks use their cell phones right up to the point where the plane is first in line.
~UP
Eat the Path.
The pentagon isn't that far away from the whitehouse, especially at 500 miles an hour. I have some doubts that a plane could get shot down by some secret surface to air missile before it reaches the white house.
if they are a DANGER, why do they even let you bring them on the plane?
So terrorists dont need knives or bombs.. just a bunch of cell phones?
God , this will make traveling a nightmare!
Can you imaging your on a packed overnight flight and some jerks phone starts blaring out the batman theme, it's hard enough to sleep on a plane let alone sleep on a plane with some loud mouth two seats behind you saying at the top of his voice "Sorry I can't hear you your brea...."
No, they don't crash planes, but the pilot must endure even more static in the headphones when some lamer leaves their phone on. Sure, the pilots can handle it, but it is one more pain in the ass they don't need.
"The FAA, FCC, and the airlines really want to be absolutely sure that there will be no interference anywhere."
Funny how those private charter jet pilots never seem to have a problem with cell phones in flight... I swear it's a racket to get you to make a $5.00/min phone call using that ugly-ass phone crammed in the arm or head rest.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The FBI, CIA, AFLCIO, EFF, PGA, SEC, NFL, RNC, and Zell Miller approve.
Now I have to type a paragraph of non-sense because I can't post my comment due to the Lameness filter.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Zoid.com
I'll second that, but I can see that exact situation happening. As if there wasn't already enough racism (but lets not get into that), particularly relating to terrorism, now we'll get people on cell phones calling the CIA trying to tip the government because the person sitting in the seat across from them isn't white...gotta love upping the chances of me going to jail because of some crazy moron
remember 5 or so years ago when all the planes had handsets built into the seatbacks for the passengers behind them to use?
then cell phones became universal amongst business travelers overnight, and the airline's bitched and moaned about all their lost revenue.
now they're "working on something" to allow cell phones to be used in-flight? they can already be used in-flight, as they've got direct line-of-sight with quite a few towers.
does anyone remember when cell phones were actually banned from use in airplanes? was it before, during, or after the advent of the seat-back airline phones that cost exhorbinant amounts?
if during or after (or even shortly before and possibly associated), doesn't it seem a bit suspicious that the ban might be directly linked to the installation of the seat-back phones? ie, "cell phones are dangerous, so use our 30 cent/minute phones instead".
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So.... how exactly was it that people were able to make cell phone calls from the 9-11 jets if cell phones dont currently work from jets in 2004?...
Wish in one hand, and shit in the other.
Let me know which hand fills up first.
I would rather cellphones stay banned as I really don't want to spend 6hrs on a plane with some ass who's talking the entire time.
Yes i know they did not, but still it was a good lie
As a person who flies one a regular basis, I believe the ability to use cellphones on an airplane is definitely not worth the risk of interference. No phone call should be worth your life or those of your fellow 100+ passengers.
Really, you're going to be trapped in an airplane...what are you going to do if someone calls about something important? Ask to get off so you can do whatever you need to do?
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
It's not an issue of yapping on the phone too long and not being able to control it. I live about 40 minutes from the airport. If I have to wait until I land to call for a ride, i'd be waiting at least that long. I can always make the call before I get on the plane, but there are frequently delays, even after you get on a plane. Making the call in-flight would be far more efficient.
They're not secret, i think it's a given there's stinger squads at the whitehouse.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This shows that the calls supposedly made from the flights were lies. Pure and simple. Why wasnt such an obvious connection pointed out by more people?
Wired magazine covered something similar in their April 2004 issue. (Sadly, it's not archived on the site, and a quick Google search turned up nothing--anyone have a hard copy?) They had ostensibly independent investigators try to figure out why various electronic gadgets were banned (or needed to be turned off) during takeoff/flight/landing. Conclusion: basically no one could demonstrate that mobiles, wi-fi laptops, PDAs, media players, or anything else posed a clear danger. Since most legal toys are specifically designed not to radiate at the wavelengths dedicated to commercial airline radio channels, it begs the question: why are we still asked to turn them off?
If that's too much typing for you,(without any spaces put there by Slashdot) yields: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circ
the real reason why cel phones are such an issue is because when you get that high in the air, a cel device can see many, many towers. this causes a severe flood of traffic due to delegation, etc.. this is what is meant by ``disrupt cel networks''.
brady
We must have had commercial air travel now for something like 80-odd years but all of a sudden it's just SO important that we remain constantly in touch on our phones.
It seems like most of the human race these days needs to look up from their little screen occasionally and see what's happening in the real world.
A mobile phone is a tool, nothing more. Sometimes you need it, most of the time you don't.
Get used to it, get a life!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. --
I hope they find something really harmful about using cellphones on planes quick!
On the airplane has been the only place where you could still be free from the plague of people around you annoying you with their ringtones and phonecalls since the coming of cell phones.
Or you yourself being harrassed with inconvenient phonecalls while you're sitting in a crowd of people.
This is going to make airline travel so much more of a nuisance than it already is..
Mh, strange as far as i have heard the technology must be pretty old since a lot of victims in the hijacked planes placed calls via cellphones. This works probably from a low flying plane for a short time, but from a high flying plane?
Wait a minute, I thought we already had this capability. After all, the 9/11 passengers on the hijacked planes were supposedly able to make calls.... hmmmm.......
"...the plan is to have a mini cell tower, a picocell, on the plane...", and the picocells will undoubtedly be "over" us, so how is it off-topic?
will they make the captain use a hands free headsets so they are less likely to get distracted and get in an accident?
I get the joke, but just for the record, studies show that people using hands free are no less likely to get involved in accidents. Turns out that being involved in a conversation is what distracts, not holding the phone in your hand.
stingers are tiny, and cause damage through shrapnel, not massive explosions that are large enough to deter a jumbo jet from the path the law of 'skipping a rock against a falling boulder will just frustrate you before you die'.
- I'd prefer not to.
There are serious doubts in many people's minds about whether the stories of cell phone use on September 11th 2001 can possibly be true. See for instance this article on Global Research.
Captain over intercom: "Ladies and Gentlmen, as you may have noticed we have been flying around in circles for the past 20 minutes. We have determined this is because some idiot in the back of the plane is using their cell phone and our ILS has locked onto it, so if you would please be so kind as to turn it off so that we may actually land..."
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
But it is about DROPPING the damn phone when you A) Fill up your tank and B) chat at the same time. Drop it and the battery might fall off hitting the ground causing a spark -> igniting the fumes.
It is far fetched but still possible, I'd rather be on the safe side.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I guess I don't get the choice not to sit under a cell phone mast for 11 hours on a flight anymore. Like a number of people in this post, I don't think its a great problem for people to be without their cell phone for a few hours - at the risk of flaming, people don't get to smoke on planes, why can't they live without phoning too.
Are you telling me my shitty £40 nokia can pick up hundreds of cell towers from 30,000feet?
I do not believe this, flat out.
"The article also says that cell use may still be banned during landings just to be safe."
;-)
How are they going to disable the phones at landing?
If they just turn the microcell OFF then all of the phones on the plane will start to emit at FULL POWER trying to find a new cell. When the tower signal is strong the phones tend to use really low power to save the battery. When the tower is missing they may transmit with up to 2W and this is quite much.
The other alternative is to go and check if all of the passangers have their phones turned off
I don't care if it is safe or not, but it would be annoying if a person next to me would babble to her/his phone whole trip, even if it wouldn't be nighttime.
The phones should be silent but maybe only silent text messaging would be allowed and in the separate section of a plane phone conversation could be made.
They're not secret, i think it's a given there's stinger squads at the whitehouse.
Do you know how far the Pentagon is from Regan Internation Airport?
Not even one kilometer. A passenger jet can cross that distance in less than 5 seconds. The White House is further away, 15 seconds or so. The missile itself needs 2+ seconds to travel. Imagine how quickly the guards can decide a plane has become a threat, target it, and launch.
Oh, and how many Stingers does it take to bring down a 747? Three.
Yes, there probably are Stingers in an arms locker at the Whitehouse. They might be useful if a terrorist helicopter shows up... happens all the time in the movies, right?
*Ahem* There's one big, huge, gaping problem with your intial assertion... Interfering with the radio communications between the tower and the jet does not automatically "crash planes".
I guess you don't know why "personal electronic devices" (not just radios) are required to be deactivated. It's more than just ATC comm.
There was an incident 10+ years ago where a jetliner's avionics (including things like the altimeter) went haywire. The crew suspected EM interference, and searched for 20 minutes before locating thet offending gizmo. (Supposedly, they were on the verge of jettisoning luggage). Ever since then, the FAA's "shutdown for takeoff and landing" rule has been in effect.
Here's a list of some problems attributed to unintentional electromagnetic interference. Whether or not that was really the cause hasn't been firmly tested- probably not in all cases.
I consider it a security risk that flight computers are so vulnerable to inadvertent interference. One imagines that terrorists could do some mayhem with sneaking devices hidden in other things (which of course will not be searched for like a bomb would)
stewardesses searched
stories of cell phone use on September 11th 2001 can possibly be true.
Those people don't know much about cellphones, then. They probably misquote some technical data. There's really no problem with operating cellphones from a plane- except that it places excessive strain on the phone network, which is the REAL reason they're banned inflight. A cellphone will connect with as many cell towers as it can reach. On the ground, that's usually 2-4, but over a city it may be 30+.
Note that the team accompanying Senator Kerry on his campaign jet use their cellphones all through the flights...
That's not my experience (GSM). I once was bored and did a few experiments with my computer speakers as a broadcast strength indicator. (Funny, my hifi amplifier never has those problems) The handshake and the first few seconds are broadcast at higher power.
A phone knows how strong the signal from the base is, but does not know whether the base can hear the phone as well. In standby mode, a phone is just listening, only every now and then (30 minute intervals) it will give a "I'm alive" message. So, broadcasting initially happens at maximum power. If the base acknowledges that the signal level is strong enough, the signal level is stepped down.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
The want to make sure there is absolutely no interference? Well, these people are obviously morons. You cannot "intercept" all of the radiation from the phones by putting a picocell on the plane. The phones are still going to radiate more or less omnidirectionally, including into the plane's fuselage and electrical systems. The way to make cell phone usage safe is to harden the aircraft avionics, but even then there are no guarantees. I, for one, am not risking my life so some idiot can yack on their cell phone for 4 hours while I am confined to the seat next to them.
Just move along folks. Please keep all food out of reach of the trolls.
I mean, really- I honestly believed that huge inverter in your laptop that runs the backlight at high voltage and high frequencies might possibly induce a current in an improperly shielded or frayed control wire.
Or that a spinning motor induces current in wires around it.
Or that, since nothing has ever gone wrong before nothing can go wrong.
It's so reassuring that you believe its just a bunch of bull they feed you to keep you pacified and under control. Thank god you can gamble with my life- I don't take enough risks driving down the street with all the morons that have licenses out of ceral boxes.
But I know nothing you do would ever cause a plane to experience instrumentation malfunction since, of course, you believe it so strongly.
Any chance you'll post your name, address, and social, so we can get you added to the do not fly list? Fucking twit. Put your cellphone on TDMA and hold it near a landline reciever and dial out on the cell. Induced pickup. Stop gambling with other peoples lives.
If cell phones are currently unusable inside a jumbo jet in flight, then could somebody please explain chapter one of the 9/11 Commission Report?
Who cares if it's technically feasible or not, or causes interference - the real issue is, how annyoying is it going to be listening to your seat neighbor yakking on his phone for an entire flight while you want to read or sleep. Airplanes were the last refuge of those that don't want to be made available at all times, and don't want to listen to other people's business. Now, sadly, they are taking that away.
The passengers on the Pennsylvania flight used cell phones while in flight to find out what was going on.
Now - a few weeks ago, in flagrant disregard of regulations and announcements, etc. (so sue me) - I turned on my cell phone in midflight from NYC-Tampa and was never able to get a signal.
So how did they do it on that flight on 9/11? Do I just have a crummy phone and/or service (ATT Wireless) or what? I even held the phone up to the window to try to get it to work. All I ever got was "No Service". What if some Arabs had been on the flight and had started misbehaving as Arabs tend to do?
... produces no RF.
Now what happens when said unit is damaged? One of the first things to go on a laptop is the shielding around the units- especially if they've been repaired. A bad solder joint from the factory or, even worse, a home repair where the user said "Screw it I don't need to put the RF shielding back in place".
Suddenly your non-leaky laptop is now radiating RF in all directions because it's missing the copper mesh that was removed!
Tape cassette, well... yeah thats a hard sell to produce RF. In fact I'd say modern units produce more RF given the more highly compact nature and the more processing performed. Pity I don't actually own a cassette player so that I could have it's RF measured.
And you are 100% correct that being alert during takeoff/landing is the most important reason for prohibiting anything other than staring ahead.
Sorry, the passengers did not bring down that plane. The US government has never actually said that, they just led folk to believe it. A few people in governement have indicated that "the truth will come out on that one one day", or words to that effect. The whole story is suspect, and most people who are familiar with air wreckage patterns say it is clear that that particular flight was shot down. The "let's roll" story was just sugar coating.
Besides, cell phones are irrelevant to this theory now. If you are on a plane that is hijacked, which date will come to mind? It will be easy to get a few folk willing to fight back. No need for a phone call for you to work out the worst-case scenario.
I just replied to Frosty the piss-man, so suck it.
If the plane flew over the whitehouse it would be shot down. Just shot down.
I don't think the plane was planning to fly over the Whitehouse
Seeing as mobile phones were used to remotely detonate the explosives in the attacks on trains in Madrid on 11 March, perhaps this isn't such a good idea. What with people checking shoes etc for small explosive devices, shouldn't mobile phones be undesirable on planes full stop?
Essentially if we are seriously worried about security, mobile phones shouldn't be allowed on planes full-stop. I know it's not realistic, but it is the reality. I for one would be pissed off if they banned them.
Cell phones do work on planes already. How do you think the people in the flight that crashed in pennsylvania figured out that their plane was going to go down? Besides that ranting, airplane instruments are pretty much unaffected by consumer electronics, and if a gameboy or cellphone can take a plane down, I think there should be some serious investigation into the airplane technology industry! This is a ploy for money
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
air traffic controller issuing tickets to pilots for using cell phones while flying. :-)
As if putting up with a smelly fat man in close proximity isn't enough...now he comes armed with a cellphone.
Not to imply you're wrong, but if the White House had Stingers ready to go, the Pentagon would've had a Star Destroyer.
This should be modded "Insightful."
Perhaps someone else with more industry knowledge can confirm or deny the reasons for this, but below is my personal experience.
Among other hobbies, I am a HAM operator and a skydiver. The two hobbies have fused at various points and experiments. On several occasions, I have perform high altitude openings and taken along HAM or cell phone equipment. I then played with the equipment at intervals from around 10K feet down to about 3K, at which point I put it away and concentrated on landing.
In short, the HAM coverage was pretty dang good, and cell coverage sucked! On the ground in this area I would have full signal, at altitude I literally could not find one.
So, the only two explanations I thought of were:
1. the propogation pattern of cell towers is more or less straight out, which would make sense really.
2. the cell phone I was using could not isolate a signal because multitudes were available. This seems a bit less likely since cell phones are designed to shift from tower to tower.
Anyway, based on my experience, reception at altitude would be totally useless anyway.
Hmm, I think commercial pilots are forbidden from playing music (especially loud music) during takeoff because they might need to hear emergency instructions from the tower, like:
"Fucking student in a Cessna landing/taking off on cross runway!"
That's actually pretty likely from the airports I expect you use. Also, I think if you suddenly had to talk to the tower about, I don't know, loss of power that forces you to abort the takeoff or (god forbid) make an emergency landing beyond the runway, the controller might be a little annoyed/distracted by the Steppenwolf.
But what the hell, you haven't killed yourself yet.
Amazing that if you read the 9-11 Commission Report (even just chapter 1) that one will find that there were OVER 25 cell phone calls made at 20,000+ each when they started.
Amazing that these all worked. On one flight out of Boston there were two flight attendants who used regular CELL phones to have 25 minute calls EACH while turning just North of Albany NY. They were started at 29,000 feet according to the official records.
I find this really interesting since I know of experiments with regular cell phones in private jets that cannot get a long call (no more than 3 minutes) above 11,000 feet.
The REAL reason they don't allow them to be used on aircraft is simple. It has nothing, and I really mean NOTHING to do with aircraft safety... it has everything to do with the fact that you are traveling above cell towers at a high rate of speed, and since you are in the sky, your phone can connect to tons of cells at the same time. This results in:
1. Multiple cell towers that are not adjacent try and lock onto the phone, their protocols never had this in mind, when on the ground it's impossible to do this. Cell 'a' hands off to cell 'b'... no way in hell you can get to Cell 'c' without either turning off your phone, or going through cell 'b'... in the air line of sight screws this assumption up big time.
2. You have reduced available bandwidth since multiple non adjacent towers have now allocated bandwidth for your phone.
3. The constant roaming between cell towers caused by your altitude and speed can cause issues with other phones using the towers. I've specifically seen it happen while testing a new GSM/GPRS tower 5 years ago. The phone in the air was broadcasting in an incorrect timeslice and frequency for the new cell tower, but it was still within the boundaries for timing of the handshake that it had moments earlier on a tower that was 2 cells away.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Someone may have already mentioned this, but the problem isn't interference in the aircraft, its interference on the ground. You can't use them in *ANY* aircraft, including hot air balloons. Why? The problem is the distance at which your signal can be picked up, not the electronics on the aircraft. In early days of the cell network, your phone jumping between cells so rapidly or appearing on an unexpectedly large number of cells would freak the system out and cause dropped calls for other customers.
My understanding is, things have gotten somewhat better with the virtual demise of analog cell phones.
Wireless internet? You've got to be kidding! All this talk of Wi-Fi on planes drives me CRAZY. In economy class on most airlines I can't even open a paperback book with the seat in front of me reclined. Laptop? Forget it! Maybe a Wi-Fi PDA would work, but I think most people will be sorely disappointed when they try to use the internet in-flight, only to discover they can't even open their laptop.
The cell-phone story itself is a scam. A K Dewdney tested it; you can't reliably make cell-phone calls in flight - without these new gadgets added to the planes. C'mon, they're waving it right under your nose!
1) Cell phone use by passengers saved the White House on September 11th. Passengers were able to learn what happened at the World Trade Center, and correctly deduced that the plane was going to be used as a weapon.
Well, thank God that when this new technology is available we can go back in time and save the White House again. A quick google search on the topic raises more questions than answers.
Cell phones in the hands of passengers is the best chance that NORAD has of learning that a plane has been hijacked before it can be used to hit anything.
If this is anywhere remotely true, I think we should demand our tax money back for anything spent on defense. If the folks at NORAD have no existing technology besides the hope of a civilian telephoning them about a hijacked plane.... WTF, I'm pretty sure that NORAD has things like realtime satellite images, realtime feeds from air traffic controllers, or at least a damn cable modem like I have at my house so they can use that internet thing to go to websites like this one (NOTE: you have to replace the XXX with the letter 'a'. I guess the lameness filter or something will not allow urls to "tracker.php" because of torrents or something???).
In the 21st Century, the only way to be safe is to build a plane that is immune to cell phone interference.
Who moderated this as Interesting and Insightful??? Besides the NORAD statement, this is a pretty silly statement. I have heard nothing about there being serious issues from current planes not being immune to cell phone interference. Yes, some planes can get interference. Commercial airplanes have a myriad of electronics on them that are as old as the 60s and 70s. Also, the interrerence is most likely from analog "cell" phones, not the newer digital (non "cell" ones).
Anything less is delusional folly.
I'm not even going to comment on this.
Question: Is there some way to have a more professional version of slashdot? I love this site, but sometimes I find the insight, experience, and knowledge of highschool and college kids to be a little lacking in at least experience and knowledge. I'm not trying to be harsh here. I have friends in college. I was once a knowitall teenager and a knowmorethanall 20something, but now I'm a little more mature (not much, but a little). It would really be nice to have something beyond friends and foes, something more like "peers" and "not peers", or something to keep a post like this getting modded up to +5 Interesting (with Insightful as well).
I say forget the potentional interferance that cell phones will cause. Who is going to want to sit next to someone who's talking on their cell phone for a 6 hour flight? Just from a pure courtesy stand point, I hope they keep the ban on cell phones.
Can someone explain how all those cell phones worked so perfectly on 9/11? I have never been able to get a cell phone signal in flight. But judging from all those completed calls, no new technology needs to be developed!
Can we also use water balloons on the cell-equipped flights?
Seems like a fair trade-off.
I didn't RTFA, but the way this was suggested in the past would only allow for CDMA phones.
In CDMA, the cell tells the phone how much transmit power to use, thus the picocell on the plane would dial the power down on all the phones such that they would no longer interfere with ground networks and would reduce the interference with on-board stuff as much as possible.
not only fat people who take up more than there fair share on my seat, but also people who can't hang up their damn phone? Oh great.
The prospect of cell phones on airplanes should scare you to death. If you would like to read about uncommanded auto pilot deviations and navigation problems that have already occurred then I recommend that you visit the Nasa - Aviation Safety Reporting System web page. See the link to passenger electronic devices on or .
I wonder what would happen if you tried to use a cel phone in the Space Station? Would it be out of effective range or see too many towers?
Bonus: This might also reduce the exposure of passengers to microwaves & such at high altitude (remember reading about a trans-continental flight being about the same exposure as an X-ray.)
"DUDE! You''never guess where I'm calling you from!
I'M ON A PLANE!
Yeah....
YEAH...
No... AN AIRPLANE, LIKE IN THE AIR AND FLYING
HOW WAS THAT PARTY? Did you tap that Omicron? YEEAAAAAAHHHH, BRO!!!"
[continue on until you find something security didn't take to kill fellow passenger with]
yet another reason to not fly.
s'wut i sed.
Obviously, airplanes are vulnerable to transmissions on cellular bands. Al-Queda, please find someone with an EE degree to produce you a kilowatt radio transmitter that hits 747s at their vulnerable frequencies. Disguise it as a Teddy Ruxpin doll. Ask the Saudi king to loan you his private jet to test it on, it should only take you a few hours.
If they're worried about it, FUCKING HARDEN THE ELECTRONICS ON THE GODDAMMED PLANES. CHRIST. This isn't even rocket science, it's grade-school logic. It's like putting a big red button on every airplane seat that says "press to self-destruct" and asking everyone to be careful not to touch it. It's just an accident waiting to happen.
Imagine 2006: 150 people sitting right next to you, trying to scream into their phone over the engine noise.
I swear, I'll never fly again.
Better NOT be patriot missles, considering they don't work, and never even took down a Scud in 1991, despite the news and military reports.
. ht ml
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58147,00
-Stu
I'm not a commercial pilot, private pilot only, and I rarely ever use airports that have a tower, I fly in and out of uncontrolled airports 99% of the time. At controlled airports, the "tower" (ATC, could be ground control if you're preparing to take off) tells pilots which runway to use, they do not normally choose for themselves, unless there's an emergency.
Also, the music player interface in not capable of outputting any sound at all into the microphone circuit, it only plays thru the headphones, and when any signal comes in over the radios, the music input gets automatically muted, and the radio overrides it.
Whoosh!
It *IS* an urban legend DAMMIT!
* Explosions from fume ignition have happened from time to time since filling stations first appeared. Cellphones are blamed because everybody carries one nowadays and the chance is pretty good that someone will be carrying one or even talking on one while they are filling the car. Just because the cellphone was there doesn't mean it was the cause!
* No, the vibrator unit is NOT a danger--it is generally a teeny tiny, low voltage DC motor that spins a little off-balance wheel... IT CANNOT PRODUCE A SPARK SUFFICIENT TO IGNITE FUEL VAPOURS AT A FILLING STATION. Hell there is a MUCH BIGGER electric motor RIGHT INSIDE THE GAS TANK of most of todays cars (the fuel pump) and they manage to keep that from exploding.
* ALSO, NO the backlight CANNOT ignite the fumes. Yes, the "indiglo" style LCD displays and laptop backlights have a high voltage tube in them, but the curent is EXTREMELY LOW and the tube is COMPLETELY SEALED. FURTHERMORE, todays cellphones use LEDs for lighting displays anyways--they operate at LESS THAN 2 VOLTS and use MILLIAMP-RANGE CURRENT and it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to ignite any sort of fumes.
There are several EXTREMELY MORE LIKELY causes of filling station explosions:
1. Cigarettes - yes it is forbidden to smoke at the pump but people are stupid and don't listen--I've seen people get out of cars with lit cigarettes hanging from their mouths as they open their fuel tanks BEFORE they drop it on the ground and stomp it out.
2. Static discharge - people put the nozzle in, lock it to the open position then proceed to talk on the phone, or check the oil, or go buy coffee, or check the baby's car seat, etc, picking up static charges, then when the car is full they grab the METAL nozzle--where the highest concentration of fumes is and BOOM
3. Backfiring from nearby vehicles, yes it's rare but probably more likely than a cellphone to cause sparks or open flame.
4. Pretty much anything else involving electricity and/or metal-to-metal contact. Engaging the starter causes a spark. A damaged/worn spark plug lead next to the engine block will spark strongly and repeatedly as soon as you start the car. Breaking an incandescent or flourescent bulb that is lit..a dragging mufflert on the pavement...etc etc etc...
WHat the hell is WRONG with you people..can you NOT see the lack of common sense in this? All of these much more likely events, capable of creating much mure intense sparks or open flames and you STILL blame cellphones for explosions? I guess that is what makes a good urban legend--if it is debunked then someone comes up with yet ANOTHER crazy theory of what might cause the phenomenon.