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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."
2. I would think that it would.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
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.
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.
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The most interesting ones are 11 and 44.
Is anyone here actually able to see these events in person?
I flew this past weekend, and at 35k feet I did not get any signal. A lot of the passengers on 9/11 used those "airfones" that are built into the seats. I remember hearing that Barbara Olsen (late wife of U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olsen) called in collect on one of them to relay what was happening. (She was on the Pentagon flight.)
As for the others, the planes were probably low enough to the ground to get a signal. They had to come down in order to find and hit their targets.
I seem to recall that the 9/11 comission report talked about this too.
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.
My (probably gullible) impression was always that the risks that were involved were due to potential interference with the pilot to control tower communication (I mean, what if I were telling someone on the other end of my cell call "Lower! Lower!!!!" very urgently and the pilot thought that was the air traffic controller talking to him/her).
A more cynical view might be that the airlines wanted to control a slice of the air time charges and couldn't do that with cell phones. Might that be the case? Nah.
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.
Yeah, first he said she used her cell phone. When someone pointed out that wouldn't work he changed it to a collect call from an airphone, since she didn't have her purse.
He didn't know. The problem is that she couldn't get a direct line to her husband's office. She kept getting disconnected, and when she called back she had to find a way to convince the switchboard operator to accept the charges from the collect call. I know this; I watched him tell the story on Fox news three days later.
I don't know what his story changed to when someone pointed out that you need a credit card to get the phone out of the seatback.
The ones on the plane I was on this weekend didn't. You just pushed the button and it poped out. (I know b/c I got bored and played with it.) The ones I've seen that do require a credit card to get out are not that difficult to get around; a thin utensel or a stiff business card could pop them out.
Okay, credentials first: I'm an electromagnetic compatibility engineer with one of the worlds larger commercial aircraft manufacturers.
The difference with the AirPhone is that it is accounted for in the design of the aircraft and it is a known quantity. Your cell phone (and the WiFi card in your laptop and your bluetooth PDA) are unknown elements. There are plenty of aircraft out their that where designed and constructed before personal wireless gear became widespread, and even if you design with say the GSM cell phone standard in mind, you don't know that all possible handsets will meet the spec with regard to spurious emissions.
The thing is, we don't know the answer to what this stuff to do. And we're pretty smart guys who are spending alot of money looking at the problem. Mean while all these people on slashdot know the answer already. I guess we should have just asked them.
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.
No shit. I got stuck behind someone boarding a plane recently. She insisted on talking the entire time while trying to drag a carry on behind her and deal with her purse. I thought that she would have at least hung up to put the carry on away, but no. She tried to put it in the overhead bin with one hand. When she started having problems, she looked at me as if she was going to ask for help. I just stood there looking disgusted at her. She finally hung up when a stewardess asked her to. The sad part was she wasn't talking about anything important or earth shattering. It was the usual catching up with old friends bullshit that could have been saved for another time. Yet it was important enough to her to slow down and hold up the 100 other people standing behind her.
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.
Wrong!!! There is an article in this Month's issue of Smithsonian Air and Space magazine that has hard data from NASA tests that proves cell phones are a hazard. Cell phones are just not shielded well use,a plane has about 10 systems that rely on external signals, and some cells emit signals (not the call signals but "leakage") in that range. I couldn't find a web link to that article, go check it out on the newstand. I too used to think it was no big deal but airplane electronics are setup to deal with outside sources of interference not inside. Also there is some thought that at 35K feet you can hit dozens of towers with a call making the call management software do back flips :) bringing down the network for everyone..(I have no idea if this is true..just heard it).Anyhow I dont think just adding "picocells" is going to correct the problem of poorly designed cell phones that give off EMR they are not supposed to!
The reason the FCC bans cellphones in-flight is because from 30,000 feet, you can see several hundred or more cellsites. Which the switching gear does not deal politely with.
People think in terms of commercial aircraft, but private aircraft have the same restrictions, even if you're in a Piper Cub with no electrical system.
What about the exploding nokia batteries?
Actually, you're wrong. If you read the FCC regs very carefully, it's analog cell phones that are banned from the air, not digital ones. It's because the frequency that the analog phones run in put them in the banned category, while the digital ones are in a different category.
Keep in mind this is probably just a loop hole.
Also, my ex-girlfriend's brother was a 747 captain, he regularly saw interference from people using cell phones.
He was flying an older plane that used 70's technology, btw.
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?