Cell phones on airplanes

Ok, it looks like several airlines are planning on implementing personal cell phone use during flights. UAE Air is doing it now and several European airlines are also getting ready to do this-Ryan, Easyjet, Virgin among them if I remember correctly. Is this a good thing or just more invasion of personal space and noice pollution?

Current in flight phone use costs about 5/min and personal cell phone use is guestimated at around 3.50/min.

I think the cheap airlines will utilize it as another cash generating extra.

Personally I appreciate being non-contactable for the few hours on short haul flights. on long haul I prefer not to work so as to try to be reasonably relaxed on arrival.

I vote to restrict conversation of any kind on a plane, except for in the cockpit.

It's obvious to me that a flight is MY relaxation time. I don't want to listen to your conversations, one-way or two-way. Bad enough they don't give me an entire row to myself.

Matter of fact, I think that by now they can just cut out the verbal instructions in the safety demo, and just do it in mime.

From what I've read about Personal cell phones on planes is that they use a small GSM base station in the plane, and backhaul it, via ground radio or Satt. The per minute prices, are almost equal to that of the old seat phones, now just using your own gear..

"side bursting here"

i keep thinking of Marcel Marceau doing the safety instructions!

Yup, DK, a nano base station on plane, back-hauled via the normal route. but a constantly moving, crossing borders and networks base station is a bit of a bother for the billing guys me thinks.

overall i think tis a bad idea, hate to sit next to some workaholic on say US bodyclock yapping away in what would be the middle of the night for me just cuz his office is open. i say build a soundproof cabin in a plane. if you have to make/take a call please go to the cabin instead of irritating others!

Thats what they have on the Shinkansen high speed trains in Japan. Thats is a confortable way to travel.

Something tells me the companies that sell cell phone jammers, are about to get lots of business

Yup, that would be it, bad enough having some spotty, greasy haired adolescent sat next to you with an MP3 player with crap headphones on so you can hear his choice of thrash/hiphop/shite.

The planes will be equiped with a cell phone router that connects via a satellite to the ground. That is how they will make their mula and it will cost around 60-70% of what they now charge on the back of the seat phones.

On a side note, I would love to smack them when they pull out the duty free cart. They always seem to wake me up by ramming that thing into my leg.

eurovol, you are right and it was also mentioned by DK, what I was wondering is that a roaming cell phone is no problem, but a roaming base station Is!

I always wear headphones on any plane journey. Nice, big block-out-all-external noise headphones. I don't wanna hear anybody doing anything. If companies are gonna start letting people use phones on planes, then they should put TV and stuff on EVERY flight so people can plug into some viewing and ignore the twat pretending to be soo important that he has to draw attention to himself by using the phone (and stinking of far too much cologne). I hate getting on a plane for short flights, seeing the TV in the back of the headrest, and knowing that they won't bloody put any telly on. Even the latest news headlines would be something, but why not a few episodes of the simpsons or some other short stuff?

The old cell phones are a problem for the avionics and for the ground networks. Only new phones that are capable of being routed via the plane can be used AFAIK. It will also be a selling point on new phone technology. Its all a conspiracy I tell you. In a similar poll in the UK, some 84% of respondants think it is a bad idea, but the airlines are going to do it anyway. Fuckers!

Don't ever wish for that. We had an hour of Loriot sketches on the flight back from Malaga, and I much rather would have had the stinky cologne jerk yakking away on a cell phone coz then I could have joined in the conversation.

This is one of the main reasons for RyanAir to allow the use of cell phones in airplanes. They want to introduce the possibility of gambling via mobile phones connected to betting sites on the net. The other day they were showing something on the telly about this. It's intended to be implemented in 2007.

Here's a rather old article from BBC on the gambling plans.

I like the "Cant be got on the phone time" my ex contract booked me on Lufthansa because they had Internet access (VPN) so I could work while flying transatlantic...totally anal
I have noise a reduction head set perfect for flying and turning off the world, much better

They should install touch screen strip poker on the backs of seats. Now that would be great for passing the time away and is quiet.

Why bother with online strip poker? Get a round of real people on the plane to join in.

back in the old days during the first phase of restricting smoking on planes they had "smoking" and "non-smoking" sections. Perhaps it is also time to introduce "talking" and "non-talking" sections.

I like the idea of a soundproof booth. Of course this wouldn't work if incoming calls are allowed. Can you imagine a plane full of ring tones interupting the peace?

I doubt its a roaming base station, I suspect it will be a fixed point on the network with all the traffic transparently routed via the back link ground station.


From the handsets point of view its just in a cell. The fact the cell is on a plane shouldn't make any difference.

The problem is with handsets that don't find a cell, they keep uping the power output trying to reach one.

hmmm...exile maybe we discuss this offline, but a fixed point in the network yes, but when you belong to say TMO and the BTS is flying over china does that mean the satellite connectivity is fixed to TMO hence it is treated as such. if so completely understood!

From what I understand, the powering up of cell phones looking for connection is what is the interfering problem with avionics and the ground networks. The beacon on the plane is meant to takeover all connections forcing low power activity by the cell phones. Now, that router on the plane will connect only to sats which then route to ground stations owned by the company that charges you the fee. They will then pay the airline a per minute access usage.

I wish our poll could decide this international plan!

oh god, the last place i want inflated ego calls is while being in a plane, considering 25% of people seem to act suddenly as if they are god and important and sadly ignorant because "they are flying on business" this is a recipie for air rage. i can see it now...

important business man gets important phone call on a shit line and i'm sat behind having a jovial happy laugh with my nieghbour. (or worse my three year old inadvertantly in his uncoordinated fashion slightly taps his foot more than once on the guys seat!!) it will end in tears.

smoking yes, phone calls no!

in fact fat havanas yes! phone cals no!

This, essentially is how it works. The plane becomes a cell itself and as signal is so strong the phones wind down their power so they no longer interfere with the avionics (were such a thing possible, which is doubtful in any case). As it's a defined cell, it's easy to charge back to the providers like a moving country. You could probably call other phone owners on the same plane at special rates

I wonder if this will be really profitable. I guess it could be if people dont stop to think about the fees. FYI: Connexion by Boeing, the inflight internet service, is being phased out - didnt generate enough cash apparently. RIP Connexion, RIP.

My ex-boss uses Skype on planes were there is a wireless internet connection in business class. Has been doing it for yonks

cheap flights will soon be a thing of the past and only the super rich who dont need mobiles will fly. we will skype and do merged virtual enviroments so this is a redundant discussion...

Its seriously almost here!

Ryanair to offer in-flight mobile calls within days

nioce

According to the 911 Comission, this was possible back in September 2001. Although anyone with half a brain could tell you it wouldn't be possible to make calls without the equipment currently being introduced. Try it, "accidentaly" leave your cell phone/iphone on during take-off and watch how high off the ground you need to be before your signal disappears. It wasn't possible back then, it isn't possible now, it may be possible some day.

Now about that call that Tom Brokaw took from his wifes cellphone, the ONLY one to link the hijackers to boxcutters (allowed 2001 in carry-on), at the trial of good ol' Zaccarias Moussaoui, Tom Brokaws wifes cellphone number showed up twice, both times were for failed calls (0.00m).

So explain again 911 OCT (Official Conspiray Believers), why are these airlines spending billions on something we're led to believe was already possible in 2001?

Ever seen the film Network? Makes for interesting viewing at this current state of play.

I never understand what he's talking about.

Its not that making calls from planes isn't possible (Under 3k Feet), its that doing so can overload the cell network. When you up that high and moving that fast
you are connecting to many towers over a large area. This floods the cell network with ghost signals from your phone. Because of this the network
doesn't know which cell site to route the call to/from.

If you bother to read up on the tech. being used today to let people make calls from planes you will see that each plane is fitted with what is
actually a flying cell site. Phones in the plane connect to this transmitter (And only this transmitter), with the backhaul to the ground phone network
being either via satt. or a dedicated air-ground Antt. trunk link. This setup lets the calls go thru without all the ghost signals overloading the ground
cell network.