Slashdot Mirror
Cellphone Use On Planes Coming Soon?
s31523 writes "A while back it was reported that cell phone use was given the OK on Emirate airlines. The BBC is now reporting European agencies back the use of cell phones in air. Plans have been developed to introduce technology that allow cell phone use on planes without any risk of interference. A spokesman for the UK regulator Ofcom said there were still many stages to pass through before final approval was given to the roll out of the plans, but the regulator said that the technology could be implemented next year."
Eagerly awaiting the Motorola Snake and all the jokes that come with it.
Laziness is a virtue, anyone who bothers to tell you otherwise, is clearly lacking it.
In related news, Boeing and Airbus both announced the immediate availability of "Cone Of Silence" option on all airplanes.
Now we get loud mouthed cellphone jabbers AND 13 yr old SMS kiddies beeping away during the entire duration of Sydney and LA... I can forsee 15 hrs of absolute murderous psychopatic bliss.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
My phone has "airplane" mode where it doesn't transmit/receive, so I can still use it for its camera/music abilities.
On to the more important aspect: I hope this never gets implemented and for the most part I don't think it will. Lots of people like to sleep on planes and won't be able to with others yammering on their phones. Plus there is the extra time and cost for airlines to install the equipment to relay the signals. God only knows what "roaming" means at 38000 ft.
"You'll never guess where I'm calling from!"
Without interference, eh? Yet another annoyance to deal with while flying: listening to some yammerhead yacking into their phone for the whole flight. I'll show you interference. I'm gonna yank that phone out of your hand and flush it down the toilet. Or tell the crew that the passenger next to me is holding some electrical device next to their head and it has wires sticking out of it and strange lights flashing. And it might be ticking!
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
I refuse to fly until an airline offers a cell phone free flight. I don't want to sit in a tiny tin can for 4+ hours listening to some dork yapping about god knows what, when there is no possibility of getting away from him.
If I can't "just walk away" then the only alternative is an ass kicking, and I assume if I punched someone out on a plane they would arrest me on the ground as a terrorists or something.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Similar to the upcoming US election results
"If some guy next to you is annoying, just ask him nicely to not be."
If we lived in a society where people tried to be nice to one another then you'd be right, the rants would be dumb.
We don't live in such a society.
It's pretty clear from the way people act with cell phones on the ground that this is going to be an annoying change on airplanes. Who here hasn't seen/interacted with someone who talked excessively loud over their cell? I see (more hear) those people every day, are they magically going to vanish on airplanes? Same goes for people who talk forever.
We already have passenger's irritating other passengers without care on airplanes. My last flight we had someone who couldn't get a particular movie to play on the (obviously cheap) entertainment system. It was an old movie and (in my opinion) not very good but they kept complaining until the pilot decided to reset the system just to shut the guy up. After the reset he was fine, his movie played. Everyone else started getting random movies and the sound system didn't work but he was quite happy with himself. Add that to the multiple people swinging their luggage about without care while we were on the ground, the guy who went and got something out of his luggage when we were on the final runway, and the person who complained about the food and the trip was a quite unpleasant 9+ hours. Now add on someone talking on a cell phone for the entire trip, they don't even have to be that loud but they, or someone else, is always talking. Tell me, do you want to fly on that airplane?
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
I'd rather someone be allowed to surf the web next to me, goatse and all, than be allowed to gab on their cell. I even hate it that they can use their cells in the terminals. Why does anyone need to call to say "I'm on the ground now"? Obviously we can't rely on people to be considerate of others, but up till now we could rely on airline restrictions for a little peace. I vote we allow text messages, but no voice messages. Everyone gets to play the quiet game. Shut the hell up.
Let me get this straight:
You can bring on a cell phone, but not an iPod...
You can bring on a lighter, but not a water bottle...
You can wear a belt, but you have to remove your shoes...
Are they just making the rules up randomly or something?
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Pssst... you can wear them the entire time you're in the airport: http://www.earplugsonline.com/
Those earplugs + noise canceling headphones + a sleeping pill if you want = Transoceanic bliss.
Throw in a PSP or DS and a movie or two and you are good to go. Just don't forget to bring some spare batteries.
Allow SMS/text messaging only. No voice. Then we can have peace and quiet, and bozo business types who're afraid to be out of touch for an hour or so can still communicate with their underlings.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I assume that they plan to put a cellular transceiver on the aircraft and use some specialized technology to get the signals from the airplane to the ground -- satellite or some special mode of dealing with ground stations or something.
Anyway, just when I thought that they couldn't find any more ways on top of miniscule seats with no leg room, long unexplained takeoff delays, intrusive security, losing baggage, scheduling impossible connections, overbooking, and chronically late flights to make airline travel more distasteful, they've come up with this. I rarely do airplanes any more, and the last time I did, it took me something like 36 hours to get from Burlington, VT to Seattle.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
likely mobile devices will never be allowed on commercial flights on american airlines, as the government, and therefore the people's will, here has little sway over business practices. airlines dont want you to have portable electronic devices, so you aren't gonna get them. at least not overtly.
the question then is why, which people seem to think they know. it is most definitely not because they interfere with the flight systems. think about how many hundreds of people are on their cellphone or laptop inside the airport, why is there no record of that causing a problem with planes taking off/landing, or even messing with ATC? even if your device matched a signal a plane used, it stands to reason that the multi-million dollar commercial plane would overpower your cute little phone, and you would lose the connection, not them.
so then the most likely reason is that the airlines want to control communication. if something goes wrong, and it is apparent that the plane will go down, then passengers will of course call family and such. the stewardesses will make sure they do no such thing, believing that even the lowly gameboy might interfere with the pilots' rectifying of the situation.
once the plane crashed and everyone is either dead or in too much a state of shock, the airline can retrieve the blackbox, debrief the pilots if they survived, and now the only story on what exactly happened to the plane is one written by corporation not interested in being sued by the families of all the passengers.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Gee... I thought we could already make crystal clear calls from 25,000ft up on cell phones based on the calls from supposed passengers on 9/11!
Oh wait... someone actually tested that with cell phones and none worked at all...
Funny isn't it how they were all made through Verizon and how chummy Verizon has been with DHS and the other agencies. hmmmmmm...
I don't see why this was modded informative. Cell phones have been a problem for quite a while. I have one myself, and I rarely use it when there are other people present.
I take it from your post that you don't actually fly ever, because nobody that has been on a plane in the last few years would take those positions.
I am personally a large man, while I don't have a whole lot of extra flab, I do take up my entire seat, and more if we're talking about a 737. When somebody is taking up more space than is in a seat due to being obese they should be charge for the extra space. I barely fit in a seat as it is, and that's with the shoulders I was born with. I shouldn't have to forfeit any of my space because the person next to me chose to put on a lot of weight.
You do have a bit of a point with babies, but it is still a miserable way to fly.
As for the phones, they are basically a menace to any sort of restful flight. The vast majority of cell phone users don't realize that you don't have to yell into them to be heard. I have one myself, and most of the time I can't hear myself and the microphone still picks it up sufficiently for the other party to hear my clearly.
Limiting the cell phone use on plans to a specific walled off area would be fine by me, but expecting me or the flight attendants to moderate how loud is too loud because people invariably don't care is fundamentally unreasonable.
Instead of killing them be a bit more creative. Get your phone out and go 'Michael? Hi! Mike! How's Mrs Hayden?, Do me a favour? Pull up the passenger manifest for AA96 and make the guy in 5E disappear will you? Great! Golf tomorrow? Sure! Bye!"
It'll be one of those low-numbered rows since only people in First and Business class will be able to afford to yak away for a whole long flight. Since you'll be in that class too, don't kill them yourself, get one of your staff to do it.
If you really are in Sardine class and have someone talk all the time he's either very rich, in which case make him change his will and then kill him, or he's not really talking to anyone and just wants you to think he's rich and popular. I don't have a cellphone, I think they don't really work, people just clamp them to their heads and pretend they have friends.
Cell phones are different because it isn't always the person sitting next to you who initiates the jackassery - other people can call them. Can you honestly ask somebody not to answer their phone if it starts ringing?
Me? I think this is a terrible move. Air travel is bad enough as it is without having to put up with somebody talking 12 inches from your ear for hours. NOBODY is suffering with the current system.
If somebody annoys me with a cellphone, ie. it's obvious that it's not an emergency call and they're not going to be hanging up anytime soon, I'm going to lean over and start talking loudly into the cellphone for as long as it takes for them to give up.
No sig today...
That the "freedom-loving" slashdotters are all — posters and moderators — claiming to be happy, that the big lie of "cell phones may interfere with safety equipment on board" is being used to stop their fellow passengers from using their cell phones on the planes.
Evidently, the ends justify the means... Lying to millions of travelers to prevent a tiny minority of them from being inconsiderate, while at the same time offering them an option to pay $6/minute for the same sort of inconsideration...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Airlines have found they not reached the limits of annoying passengers yet. Hobbit-size seats, stuffy air, trip-long fasting, long bathroom lines were not enough. Bring on the cell phones!
Typical loud mouthed moron on BART (SF Bay Area subway):
.. NO ..."
LMM: "WHERE YOU AT?"
LMM: "I'M ON BART"
LMM: "BART!"
LMM: "I'M ON BART!"
LMM: "YES
LMM: "I'M ON BART!"
[Train goes in to tunnel]
LMM: "HELLO?"
LMM: "HELLO?"
LMM: "HELLO?"
[Repeat N times directly proportional to loudness and stupidness of conversation]
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"