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Cell Phones To Be Allowed On UK Planes
Matty the Monkey writes "The British regulator in charge of air travel has approved cellphones for use on airline flights, reports the BBC. Airlines will be allowed to activate base stations in the plane's tail after takeoff, creating a zone of mobile coverage around the plane. 'The services could stop working once aircraft leave European airspace. Initially, only second generation networks will be offered but growing interest would mean that third generation, or 3G, services would follow later, said Ofcom. The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than making one from the ground.'"
I once had the displeasure of sitting on a plane on the tarmac for two hours while our flight was delayed and the pilot allowed everyone to use their cell phones. It was torture as most folks were not talking on their cell phones to arrange transportation or take care of business, but they were talking (loudly) about everything and nothing and forcing those around them to have to listen! Even worse, people began trying to speak over one another and the volume gradually increased until there was an amazing din of people calling their friends to say "Hey! Hey! Betcha can't guess where I'm calling you from! An airplane! Ha ha ha ha, yeah and on my own cell phone even!". It was a horrible forced invasion of personal space and having to listen to someone blabber on and on "Like I know she does not like me because, like, she totally gave me a bitchy look yesterday and I was so like, peeved you know? because like, I think she is just so.... like not on top of it...... blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
I am waiting for the smashed phones and fist fights to start happening in response to this.
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The plane is mobile, not your cell phone!
Sales of noise-cancelling headphones suddenly rise...
First off, why would it have to be more expensive. Secondly, just how do you intend on advertising that increased fee? What if I use my cell phone and the plane is still on the ground? Would I still have to pay a higher rate when today I don't have to?
Wonderful invention. Buy them by the box.
Deleted
There went the last cell-free place on Earth. Thanks a lot UK, you've ruined the only good thing about air travel.
as the pilots aren't making calls while flying. I don't want the last thing I hear is "Gotta go, about to crash"
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Funny how all those 'cellphone calls' were made from planes above 3,000 feet on 9/11...
"Mom, this is Mark Bingham"...
According to the 9/11 commission people made cell phone calls from flight 93. How come they need extra equipment to make the calls now? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93#Phone_calls
(1) The extra base station costs money, and someone has to pay for it, after all I want to get paid for the work I've done on it don't I!
(2) The satellite bandwidth costs money.
(3) The extra infrastructure on the ground costs money.
And, last time I heard, the ground in most places is lower than 3,000m so if you use your phone on the ground what happens is that you'll be just as liable to prosecution as you are today.
Look mate, when there's a phone switched on in my plane I can hear it over the VHF radio - how do I know it's not also affecting the NAV radio (adjacent band) and making the VOR needle point the wrong way? - you can't hear that.
With all the paranoia at airports, you can't even get on a plane with a 120g tube of toothpaste. But somehow cellular phones are ok, even though we can supposedly crash the plane if we turn it on at the wrong time? Basically if there is a buck to be made, the authorities and airlines are surprisingly flexible.
Sooner or later someone will mention phone jammers, and a few posts later someone will counter with the fact that it might block a doctors phone.
This is the Godwin of mobile phone topics. Ok wait for it...
Everyone knows that several cellphone calls were placed without a "base station" in the plane on 9/11, somehow successfully hopping from cell tower to cell tower in seconds at 400+ MPH without disconnecting. We all know this was already possible. Right? Right?!?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7308041.stm
Dubai-based airline Emirates has become the first commercial airline to allow passengers to make mobile phone calls during flights.
So not only will we have to put up with babies crying* when the entire flight is trying to sleep, we'll now have to put up with some prick, most usually the same one from the cinema, who's left his phone on outdoor mode and is the only person on the flight who doesn't realise that its their phone that is ringing.
*I know babies can't help it, but the parents could at least try and comfort them instead of letting them scream their heads off.
Summation 2
The real reason why cell phones are banned on planes has nothing to do with their interference with a planes navigation system. Think about it - if there was even a minimal chance that a cell phone could cause a crash of a commercial jet, no one would be allowed to bring one on board. The FAA has tests and will fail any wire not shielded to withstand such interference.
The real reason is that cell phone networks are based on a 2 dimensional system. Cell towers grant leases based on which tower has the strongest signal from a particular phone. When the user of the phone moves from one tower's coverage to another, the lease is transferred. If a plane full of people flew over a metropolitan area with 150 cell phones negotiating leases, chaos ensues as the system is not designed to support a 3 dimensional model. Newer networks are but the older ones will be problematic. I highly suspect the British trial will have a special base on the plane which will take all the leases so the ground towers will not be affected.
The last reason is annoyance. I actually used Skype on planes from Vancouver to Frankfurt equipped with Boeing's Connexion internet service. While the trial ended, it was clear that using Skype on an overnight commercial flight could cause a great deal of annoyance to passengers wanting to sleep. ON local flights, it might be acceptable for a few sociopaths to talk the entire time thus ensuring their fellow passengers have full details of their personal lives.
I personally think that it will be less than two days before we see a newspaper article about a cleaning crew finding a passenger duct taped to the planes toilet with a cell phone shoved up his hind side.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Wait, I'm so confused. I thought cell phones and other wireless devices emitted invisible pilot killing waves, so deadly that we must turn off all devices upon takeoff and landing, and put them into "pilot safe" mode when in flight?
I saw a documentary on it here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/30
Oh, I guess that frequency-hopping signals really aren't that bad.
On the Tokyo airport bus, the announcement says:
"Passengers are reminded that portable telephones should not be used on the bus as they annoy the neighbors!"
so very true.
all these many years that they've been claiming that mobile phones interfere with navigation equipment, that was just lies right?
Cause if mobile phones really interfere with navigation equipment then why do they let people take mobile phones on the plane?
I bet someone could make a radio jammer that will fit in a mobile phone form factor.
Attacking aircraft is just so damn simple that it is obvious that "terrorists" are just not interested.
How we know is more important than what we know.
... the number of mid-air fatal beatings of fellow passengers with in-flight meals is about to rise 5000%.
I personally think that it will be less than two days before we see a newspaper article about a cleaning crew finding a passenger duct taped to the planes toilet with a cell phone shoved up his hind side...
Yes. God I can't wait for that day.
Please switch off your portable audio tape players as radiation from the headphone cables may interfere with the flight.
For entertainment, you may instead dial through the wireless GSM base station we have stuck to the back of the aircraft.
as we don't have 'cellphones' in Britain. Now, as for mobile phones....
-1 not first post
So, let's say I'm talking on my cell phone. However, a plane with its own "cell tower" is in its tail heading toward me. What happens next? Will my phone see that as a stronger signal and hop to the plane, and then back to a ground station?
I hope they figured this all out, because I can imagine overhead flights causing a lot of cellular interruption of service for those of us on the ground. Better yet, what happens when two planes cross paths?
Life is not for the lazy.
Phones. The latest in a series of moves designed to make traveling on a plane as excruciating as possible. Were I wearing a tinfoil hat I might even think it were a deliberate policy to discourage people from taking planes, in the name of terrorism or whatever this week's Reichstag fire is.
- First there's the awful journey in a car and the cost of parking in the long-term carpark (slightly cheaper than buying your own plane). Or a similar fee in any taxi, should you decide to leave your car at home.
- Next up is the confusing maze of finding your check-in point in a plastic ugly 60s monstrosity designed by the same blind architect who also does all the world's supermarket carparks.
- Then you wait in line to check-in. Usually behind a Mongolian rugby team, who all have visa issues, and who all want to ask very, very detailed questions about their seats.
- Then there's the security check. The hours of waiting, then the removing of shoes, belts, rings, laptops, false teeth, and god knows whatever else. This despite the fact that it's pretty easy to throttle a steward using the shoulder strap on your carry-on.
- Then you have to hang around for hours in the departure lounge (you arrived 3 hours early to beat the lines at security). You fill the time by buying bad coffee which costs about the same as 100 gallons of avation fuel. Tastes like it too.
- Then you get on the plane....
And now some fucker's gonna sit and phone for hours?Screw planes, I'm going by boat. It's probably quicker.
One more reason not to fly so often anymore.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
. Cell towers grant leases based on which tower has the strongest signal from a particular phone. When the user of the phone moves from one tower's coverage to another, the lease is transferred. If a plane full of people flew over a metropolitan area with 150 cell phones negotiating leases, chaos ensues as the system is not designed to support a 3 dimensional model.
Wouldn't a bunch of passengers on a high-speed train have the same problem? Especially the Intercity ones doing 120 miles/hour? From using a wireless modem card, it seems that it takes the modem card five or more minutes to pick up every nearby cellphone tower and lock onto the home network. Then a whole bunch of passengers zipping across the sky would skip through the honeycomb arrangement of cell towers, connecting with every N'th tower?
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These idiots are the social equivalent to US trailer trash with the same lack of attention to proper dentistry, but with enough benefit money leeched from we honest tax payers to be able to afford the latest mobile telephones and countless numbers of spoilers in an attempt to turn their shitty little cars into something that looks like, but doesn't go anywhere near as fast as, an F-15 fighter aircraft.
It is this same social undercurrent that drag their rattish litters onto commercial aircraft once a year in order to enjoy eating fish and chips in the sunshine of Benidorm in Spain. These half-wits are so mindbogglingly stupid that they will probably do without a packet of "fags" and four cans of export lager just to make phone calls on aircraft as loudly as possible just because it gets right up the noses of every other non-chav passenger on the same plane.
"Oooh, look Shazza. We're up in the air now, let's phone your half-sister mother Tracy and she how many cheap fags she wants brought back wiv us!"
God forbid! I hope they also give the attendants a few extra pairs of rubber gloves for the flight because they're going to need them in order to hygenically retrieve the mobile phone of the first dolt that uses a mobile phone on a plane near me.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
There's a big difference between 120 mph on a train and 650 mph on an aeroplane.
That's just because they can't afford the liability if someone does use a mobile on the bus. Have you seen what happens to people who use mobile phones on busses in Tokyo? It's not pretty...
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It's also worth noting that it's very easy to put extra cell towers along the railway line. Most calls are made in cities too ("Hi, I'm almost there"), but for aircraft "almost there" probably isn't above a city.
On one line south of England I use there's a cell tower at the end of a long (few miles) straight-ish tunnel, and that's enough for calls to work right through the tunnel (possibly the signal can bounce down the tunnel?).
(PS Take 240mph for the train, since you've taken the speed of a fast passenger plane.)
The real reason is that cell phone networks are based on a 2 dimensional system. Cell towers grant leases based on which tower has the strongest signal from a particular phone. When the user of the phone moves from one tower's coverage to another, the lease is transferred. If a plane full of people flew over a metropolitan area with 150 cell phones negotiating leases, chaos ensues as the system is not designed to support a 3 dimensional model.
That may be true for GSM networks where the phone is only talking to one tower at a time, but CDMA is designed to talk to multiple towers at the same time, so handoffs between towers is much easier.
The last reason is annoyance. I actually used Skype on planes from Vancouver to Frankfurt equipped with Boeing's Connexion internet service.
While that may be annoying, passengers already annoy me with stupid questions and misbehaving kids they refuse to discipline.
Why is a conversation between 2 people on a plane ok, but the same conversation by cell phone annoying?
Hang on - I thought phones and all electronic devices on planes were dangerous.
Or wait - perhaps we were being lied to all along? They're not dangerous, but in fact
perfectly safe.
Perhaps the biggest danger is people blocking isles not moving their legs when they are moving their lips. (no jokes please).
C.
And in the UK even, on many long distance trains (over about 70 miles)
"Coach A is the quiet coach, passengers are reminded that using mobile phones, stereos etc is forbidden in this carriage."
The newer ones all have base stations in the train, so I get a rock-steady signal all the way along the line. At least most people have manners, though, and the most you usually hear is the occasional ring tone (and the tap-tap-tap of email, of course!) and almost everyone leaves the carriage to talk on the phone.
They also now have power, but still no WiFi on the newest trains, but that's another rant...
And people have much worse manners (but not as bad as the last time I was in Europe!) on local trains, but that's yet another rant...
It's bad enough to have to listen to some moron in a public venue talking about absolutely nothing fifty decibals above
normal speaking level. Who the hell wants to be locked on an airplane surrounded by this?
Not that it helps; about 80% of the time there's at least one person in the quiet coach chatting away on his mobile or listening to his stereo so loudly that everyone else can hear the lyrics.
:)
And because we're British, we're too polite to complain, so they get away with it...
Most of you know what a fry's is.(electronics)I was in and picking up some parts and noticed that a teacher at a nearby tech collage was trying to show his students the different and difference between parts and technologys. As he was doing this a man was aimlessly roving about browsing with his bluetooth headset and talking VERY loudly disturbing anything the instructor was trying to say. This is common with some(not all)and is so *RUDE* that I had just about enough of the overweight pig(and his plaid tie). I won't go into what transpired between us, but needless to say he left the area. Its not just airplanes, its everywhere. I am one that will let you know that there is a code of conduct and courtesy that should be observed. IMO its not that the technology will be bad, its the users that will exploit it to impress others. Just like expensive cellphones themselves and the stupid wireless headsets that don't impress me one bit. I have a major brand that I can email, watch sports and message. I don't use it near others.(and especially driving). Texting, surfing, watching and typing on a laptop on a plane is fine. Doesn't make much noise. But needless chatting...
So now I can get sick and tired of playing these motherfuckin' Snake® on this motherfuckin' plane on my motherfuckin' cell phone?
^[:wq!
this addresses the same point raised in a few threads
I just read the other day that Qantas is going to do this on some flight is Australia, but they are restricting use to Messaging and Data use only, so NO CALLING, Yeah!!
The last thing you want on a Red-Eye flight to/from Perth etc is some numbskull blabbering on his phone.
However it will be just like international romaing so its probably going to cost an arm and a leg to use
Admiral Trigger Happy
Trains don't go that fast in regular service. The fastest run is on the Shinkansen between Hiroshima and Kokura, where the average is 165mph, peaking at 190mph. TGV hits faster speeds in record attempts by removing all the passenger carriages (since unlike the Shinkansen the power is not distributed throughout the train), but so far there are no peak speeds in service above 200mph (320km/h), and these are not sustained for long.
I wouldn't mind idiots talking on their cell phones in-flight as long as they stepped outside to take the call.
Initially, using a phone on a plane will cost money. Eventually as airlines compete with each other, some will start throwing it in for free as a competitive measure to get more customers. When that happens, I hope some enterprising person discovers that a bunch of people like me are willing to pay extra to be on flights where phones are guaranteed to not work.
My question is how hard is it going to be to tell your cell phone to ignore the pico thingy in the plane and just let it latch onto terrestrial towers so you can Text message all flight long without dealing with any added costs??
And you base this statement on what exactly? I'm a test pilot and I am sick of hearing these erroneous arguments every time this subject comes up. Every time we put a new piece of gear in a plane, we have to go through about 3-4 weeks of EMI testing to verify that the new addition doesn't interfere with the electronics of the aircraft. Guess what... the guys in the E3 lab always find some detectable change. The chance of that device causing a fatal mishap is low... but what happens when you multiply that by hundreds or thousands? These devices are *not* tested in aircraft - it would be prohibitively expensive to test every mp3 player, cell phone and wireless modem with every aircraft configuration. Have you ever been on a telecon with someone that has a blackberry too close to a mic? Do you really want that interference stepping on a pilot's voice comm with ATC and establishing an incorrect altitude or having missing a TCAS call?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
I loved hearing about this. Eva Burgess Is Getting Glasses Call up the number and ask how she likes her glasses.
CAP 756 - Portable Electronic Device Generated Electromagnetic Fields on board a Large Transport Aeroplane
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP756.PDF
CAA PAPER 2003/3 - Effects of Interference from Cellular Telephones on Aircraft Avionic Equipment
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_03.PDF
Boeing Aero 10 - Interference From Electronic Devices
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere.html
Still think banned cell phones have nothing to do with navagation interference?
Who is this Jimmy character, and why was he cracking corn in the first place?
They'll charge you more for the same reason that a can of in-flight coke costs four times what it does on the ground - because they can.
... or a hundred.
Me? I hope it's ten times the price
No sig today...
I always figured that in a fight I could unclip the seatbelt, wrap it around my hand and use that nice heavy metal buckle on the end of it to beat people to death.
I'd take a seatbelt over some nail clippers or a hairpin any day of the week.
No sig today...
You bet
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
The problem with that idea is that business users can be JUST as annoying as personal users, and they'd be more willing to pay the increased costs. I have no wish to sit next to someone discussing last week's PTS reports.
I'm going to jail :(
Trains don't go that fast in regular service. The fastest run is on the Shinkansen between Hiroshima and Kokura, where the average is 165mph, peaking at 190mph. TGV hits faster speeds in record attempts by removing all the passenger carriages (since unlike the Shinkansen the power is not distributed throughout the train), but so far there are no peak speeds in service above 200mph (320km/h), and these are not sustained for long.
An unmodified Siemens Valero E achieved 403km/h in Spain in a test run, and was originally intended to run at 350-360km/h in service, but since then the Spanish government have decided it won't run that fast in service (to save costs, perhaps). I was mistaken, I thought they were already running at that speed in service.I've heard that phone masts may be harmful. Do I really want to be trapped in a huge flying phone mast for several hours? There are people who will site reports that no link has been found between phone masts and cancer, but really there hasn't been enough time for anyone to do research on the longterm effects of being near phone masts. I'm not convinced that this will be good for peoples health.
what they mean is the cost of the call is the same as the country you are flying over (ie roaming charges...!) haha
My experience in Tokyo a few years ago concurs with yours. On the metro and underground trains a large proportion of passengers were using their phones, either for text or speech, but I was struck just how inconspicuously the phones were being used. Conversations were quiet and ringtones not too loud.
As an avid hater of loud mobile phone users, my belief that the whole mobile phone problem lies with people not the technology, was reinforced.
The British regulator in charge of air travel is not Ofcom. Ofcom regulates communications. All they have said that they would have no objection to cells in airplanes.
We already have far too many problems from uneducated idiots breeding like rats with their own kin and causing the creation of far too many chavs in this once-great country of ours.
I doubt the genetic stock or breeding in Great Britain has changed much. The big difference is that, in the past, the UK would just rid itself of people it didn't like by getting them killed in wars of conquest or exiling them to other continents, but that's not possible anymore.
If there's a low level of education in the UK today, well, there's no way around it: either live with it or educate them. Your other options have disappeared.
There is a way we can prevent this from disturbing you in your sleep. Prevnt people using any phone at all.
I will make a site on how to open up your celphone, sharpen the board into a knife and then leak it to the Homeland SA. Soon phones will be banned on planes. You could even just sgharpen the sim card.
My grandfather already told be how they would hide their 'weapons'. They sharpend a coin and used that in fights.
This is how I prevented people from passing you all the time to go to the toilet, by preventing liquids on board.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There are two problems with the first paragraph of your argument:
1) you are assuming that everything is in 100% perfect working order 100% of the time
2) you are ignoring documented instances of very bad things happening on planes when personal electronic devices were turned on.