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The Real Reasons Phones Are Kept Off Planes
jcatcw writes "Mike Elgan argues that the the real reason that cell phones calls are not allowed is fear of crowd control problems if calls are allowed during flight. Also, the airlines like keeping passengers ignorant about ground conditions. The two public reasons, interference with other systems, could easily be tested, but neither the FAA nor the FCC manage to do such testing."
this is funny because he missed the obvious and actual reason. most planes ive flown on have had a phone on the arm rest with a little slot to swipe your credit card.
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It might be easy in theory, but you need to think of scale. Take all of the cellphone manufacturers, during the course of a year a lot of cellphones are released. So each year you have a lot of cellphones to test. Then, the test itself isn't so clear-cut. Sure, that 1-year-old 737 might run fine, but what about the 7-year-old 737? It might have less around the electronics, or casual wear-and-tear might have left an opening. Put both factors together, and testing isn't so easy. Sure, it's possible but is it really worth the effort?
Congratulations on coming up with the exact opposite meaning to the one that the statement obviously is supposed to convey.
The only thing that could make my flights even more stressful than they already are (babies screaming, kids behind me hitting my seat, the person in front of me immediately putting their seat back, giving me no room to lean forward, etc...) would be someone sitting next to me, who does not apparently have the ability to control the volume of their voice, chatting away for the full 2 hours while I try to sleep. And to make matters worse, they'll probably be eating at the same time.
I'd be ok with the cellphone/no cellphone section division, though. That would be cool. Or maybe a special room for people talking on the phone. That way, I could use it without bothering anyone else if I absolutely have to make a call.
Bingo!
however:
you know, I'd rather the government (of whichever country) err on the side of caution, actually: "Well, we can't tell whether cellphones might cause crashes, so we'll just allow them and see what happens"?
Bottom line for me: people are annoying with cellphones. Now imagine sitting next to the guy talking shite for all 12 hours of a long haul flight. I'd hijack the plane just to shut him up. Keep the ban, people can surely live without cellphones for the duration of a flight... surely?
If gadgets can't crash planes, then the ban is costing billions of hours per year of lost productivity by business people who want to work in flight.
What the author completely fails to address is the noise that ensues if you have ten businesspeople in first class all "doing business" on a cell phone at the same time. Are they supposed to wander the aisles and pace as they talk? Or merely talk over one another in increasingly loud voices?
There's something about a long tube that seems to suggest to people that maybe conversation should be kept to a minimum. Not only planes, but buses and subways and trains too. In my experience riding public transit, most people do not chatter on their phones endlessly. In part, I think, because there's an unconscious realization that the guy standing 6 inches away (that you can't move away from) does not want or need to hear your prattle.
I was always under the impression that a mobile phone travelling at 500+ mph on a plane would be hopping from network cell to cell fairly regularly (once every few seconds?). This sort of frequent handover would then a) make it difficult to make, receive and conduct a call and b) cause issues for the phone networks if you've got num_people_per_plane * num_planes_in_sky_over_country people's phones all doing the same hops fairly regularly. Meh.
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I have a cell phone because it is a cheap and convenient way to have a phone number. It costs me $20 and it works in most of the places I go. I can turn it off whenever I want. There isn't anyone who can call me and make me do anything. So at best, they are *probably* another servant on a leash!
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Fully agree. Why do people focus on the technical aspects of this? It's the same reason you're asked to turn your phones off in a movie theater: because there are OTHER PEOPLE AROUND.
How is this such a hard concept to grasp? It would be nice, though, if the FCC or FAA released a statement along those lines, but it might give them some unwanted feedback... I mean, who's going to admit that the real reason is because people, on the whole, are inconsiderate turds?
This is a technical reason for a regulatory body to ban a technology? ... I hate the stupid people on the internet and so I think the internet should be banned too!
Next
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'Smore said?
It's worse than just the combinations of phones and planes. An aircraft makes a nice enclosed resonant space for cell signals to bounce around inside. Anyone who has looked at simulating or measuring RF fields would know that the field strength can vary by orders of magnitude depending on the exact location, orientation, and frequencies of the emitter and the exact orientation and location of the susceptible wiring or instrument. A tall person sitting in seat 6B with a CDMA phone may cause no problems, but a short person with a GSM phone in seat 32F could interfere with the automatic landing system. The field strength won't necessarily drop with distance inside the plane and may be focused to high levels anywhere inside the aluminum tube.
And testing individual phones isn't sufficient. What happens when 100 people all use their phones at the same time.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
In my experience, people tend to talk louder on cell phones than when talking to the person next to them. It's probably to compensate for a perceived lack of clarity in the connection.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
You obviously never heard about this. I believe this level of fear and response would be greatly increased if people were hearing stuff from the ground or using it for web surfing. The idea is that it would give people a lot of people information that might cause panic, and a mass panic on an airplane is not exactly a good place to have one.
Also, this fear the web thing is a bit over-stated on your part, considering some planes are going to begin having internet access, which short of shoots down the entire argument of this guy. There is far more information available via the internet then in any phone call. I think the real reason is they do not want to have any people chattering away and people complaining about them talking too loudly.
As for your terrorists comment, you simply ignore what the author is trying to say. He is saying this lack of wireless devices on airplanes is bullshit, because if they would take down planes, terrorists would have tested every device possible to try to interfere with equipment and see if you cannot bring a plane to the ground. You really should spend less time at Digg.
I could misremember, but weren't cell phones used by the folks resisting the terrorists on 9-11?
I seem to remember reports that the passengers used them to learn of the other attacks, and chose to resist, rather than letting the terrorists hit a 3rd target.
IIRC a cell tower covers a geographic area of 36 sq mi, and assuming that's a circle (I know they effectively chart them as hexagons, but...) if that's true, the radius, given pi r ^2 for area, sqrt(36/pi) = 3.64 miles. That's only 19,000 ft. Sure, straight line would be better than terrestrial terrain, but above 19,000 you're heading out of range anyway, not to mention rapidly switching cells (400 mph = 6+ mi/sec)
If that were the case, it'd be torches and pitchforks for the cellcos if they allow it and then it sucks.
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Everybody here has entirely too much faith in the electronics that are in place in commercial aircraft.
The wiring on board is all exceptionally thin and shielded poorly - per spec, and on a great deal of commercial planes the wiring has significant corrosion.
An industry wide test for interference factors may not indicate a great deal of problems with cell phones, but it would end up resulting in the requirement for replacing the wiring in a great deal of airplanes, at an impressive cost - because planes would have to be grounded (losing revenue from air travel), gutted, re-wired, and re-certified.
If they thought it was one or two planes, the airlines might suck up the cost (assuming crowd control and airphone revenue were not factors), but we're talking hundreds of planes, if not thousands.
The fear of having hundreds of planes grounded in order to allow cell phones is the primary factor pushing against it. Everything else is window dressing.
As someone who regularly flies across the Atlantic, I thank them.
The network transmits neighbour-cell lists to mobile. Mobile makes measurements for all the neighbouring cells and request a transfer to another cell if it is stronger. The neighbour lists are separate for each operator. If the mobile is connected to one operator, it receives the neighbour list for that operator cells only. Even if there is other operator cells around, the mobile does not try to connect to them unless it determines it has completely lost contact to network and tries to determine whether there exist other networks it could use. The system in the planes works so that there is completely separate operator network inside the plane and the neighbour-list for it is empty. The one basestation in the plane can easily be made so strong that the mobile never has a need try to search for other networks. In this way the mobile never tries to contact the cell phone network on the surface of the earth.
There is one more important point. The tansmit signal of the mobile interferes other cells even if the mobile is not trying to communicate with them. The very short distance to the basestation in the plane causes the mobile transmit at very low poer so that the signal is too weak to cause interference on earth. The situation is totally different without the basestation in the plane. In this case the mobile would try to transmit at maximum power so that the basestation on earth could hear it causing maximum interference to other cells at earth.
I can't believe it...Everyone knows that the passengers on United 93 never actually spoke to anyone on the ground it was all part of the elaborate hoax by GWB part of his plan to get more oil.... GOSH.....
j/k i just really can't stand people who say that you can't make phone calls as if that even supports their ridiculous argument.
1) Paranoia by the FAA about malfunctioning devices (which is valid, BTW-- it doesn't usually cause a problem but I have seen radio intererence from many other devices that you wouldn't expect).
Both Boeing and Eurobus have test rigs of the actual aviation equipment in their development sites (seen on Discovery channel). It shouldn't be too difficult for someone to wave a mobile phone around to see what equipment it interferes with.
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Hmmm - I was on a flight last year which was struck by lightning on final approach - I'm stunned that the planes systems can take massive broadband interference spikes from lightning without missing a beat and yet they are threatened by the milliwatts of signal from a cell phone.
First, you have to figure out how many theatres will pays the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars you'll have to charge. I'd imagine the number [of theatres] isn't very large. (IOW, I think you seriously underestimate the difficulty of installing and maintaining Farady cages.)
Sure - if the one with the cages is showing the movie I want to see.
988738/12227 =~ 81
Just saying...
Well, not that I care one way or another, but...
It's pretty easy to determine that your navigation equipment may be unreliable when it's lightning out. Not so much when someone is fiddling with their electronic device.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Planes are not "safe" or "unsafe"; there's a contunuum of risk, the risk is never zero, and different people will tolerate different levels of risk. The regulators have the job of mediating between those different tolerances, presumably taking a steer from the respective governments and certainly taking a steer from international treaties particularly those relating to ICAO.
The upshot is that apparently the FAA considers the risk of uncontrolled cellphone use too high, but that the ban on the use brings that risk down to a tolerable level. The fact that the occasional phone will be left on is factored into that risk.
Look at the reasons the article gave for banning phones:
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