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FCC to Allow Wireless Access on Planes
isd_glory writes "The FCC has unanimously voted to allow wireless internet connections on airplanes. If everything goes according to plans, airplanes might be offering passengers internet service by as soon as 2006. Furthermore, the FCC is also soliciting comments about the possibility of lifting the in-flight ban on cellphone use. While this could be new profit source for the cash-strapped airlines, it might also be a new way to annoy your neighbor sitting next to you."
It's the same as in hospitals (in Ontario, Canada at least). It was determined that cell phones *might* interfere with important equipment. Failure of important equipment in hospitals and airplanes can lead to bad things, and were thus banned altogether.
In fact, cellphones generate VERY little interference for hospital equipment. I've read that they're used all the time in some Asian hospitals by patients, doctors and everybody in between.
This is a classic example of the fire alarm principle: alarms are too sensitive because the PITA of a false alarm is much less costly than not alarming when there's a real fire.
As we realize that cell phones are pretty much harmless from an interference perspective, they're being phased in due to customer demand.
Yes, a mini base station would be required on the plane for cellphones to work. This would then be patched into the rest of the system via satellite.
Even if you are flying at 1000 feet and your signal wasn't distorted by the aluminum shell, handoffs woudln't work flying that fast. There is a small window of opportunity for cell-to-cell handoffs. It differs between CDMA, AMPS, GSM, and etc. This is also the reason the old Japanese PDC system wouldn't work in cars. Handoffs were too slow to work beyond 20 mph or so.
Lufthansa has about 80 planes with wifi already, they fly to destinations in the US and Germany..
Of course, that being said, I'd sure like some solid data. Apparently the FAA has commissioned an indepenedent agency to study the effects of cell phones on instrumentation. Results aren't due until 2006.
Anyone heard any further details about the "independent study"?
When I was working at (insert name of huge network equipment company) on their WiFi, we worked on phased-array SDMA, that stands for space division multiple access. The idea was that you could have a system with lots of nodes moving past a central point, at which was a 2D square conformal array of patch antennas. By varying the phase and amplitude of the signals to each patch antenna element, you could accurately track up to floor((2ln(n))? targets with acceptable crosstalk, where n is the number of patches on a side. This would work awesomely with a plane flying over a bunch of omnidirectional access points with a ventral mounted conformal antenna.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
I see this myth repeated often. People say that cell phones don't work in airplanes for all kinds of technical reasons.
But if you remember on 9/11, there were a whole bunch of cell phone calls that got through just fine. You don't hear of cell phone calls working on airplanes that often because as current law has it, they aren't allowed. But when people broke the rules in an emergency, they worked just fine.