Cell phones on airplanes

Good news or bad? I wouldn't mind having net access, but cell phones?

http://news.com.com/Feds+move+on+wir...news.1039.2 0

Federal regulators have proposed allowing cell phones to be used on
airplanes, and took steps toward bringing high-speed wireless Internet
connections to passengers' seats.

Air travelers will be able to surf the Net while in flight as soon as
2006, and the ban on cell phone use on airplanes could eventually be
lifted as well, if moves made Wednesday by the Federal Communications
Commission pan out.

To date, wireless devices can't be used once the airplane door is
closed. The FCC voted unanimously on Wednesday to auction off new
spectrum that could be used to provide high-speed wireless Internet
access to planes in flight. Commissioners also took a strong move
toward allowing cell phones to be used on airplanes, calling for
public comment on the issue. Air travelers who don't like being out of
touch with the ground will be able to use wireless connections to
check e-mail, surf the Internet, and eventually could make cell phone
calls from the air. That could be good news for many business
travelers, and probably bad news for those who like a little peace and
quiet.

But flyers won't be locking themselves in plane bathrooms for the
quiet, or popping tiny bottles of champagne in celebration, any time
soon.

"What the FCC did today was simply open the discussion on the use of
cell phones in airplanes," said Doug Wills, spokesman for the Air
Transport Association, a U.S. airline industry lobby group in
Washington, D.C. "It will still be a good two to three years before we
see the technology in use on commercial planes. There is still a lot
of testing that needs to be done."

No dropped calls, no dropped planes
Current rules of both the FCC and the Federal Aviation Administration
ban in-flight cellular calling. The primary FCC concern has been
possible disruption of cell phone communication on the ground. The
FAA's worry is how cell phones might interfere with a plane's
navigation and electrical systems.

At Wednesday's meeting, FCC officials proposed allowing passengers to
use "off the shelf" wireless handsets and other devices so long as
they operate at their lowest power setting and do not broadcast
unwanted radio frequency emissions that could interfere with cellular
networks on the ground. The FCC will now seek public comment on these
issues. It will also work with the FAA to ensure that FCC rules and
policies complement the FAA's efforts.

Engineers at NASA noted at least three years ago that cell phones were
being built so well that they emitted remarkably fewer
interference-causing spurious radio signals. A NASA engineer said in a
2000 interview that the airplane cell phone ban would be lifted once
earlier generations of cell phones wore down and were tossed out or
recycled.

But there has been speculation that cell phones have played a role in
some airplane crashes. European newspapers have reported that a
passenger using a cell phone during takeoff contributed to the crash
of a Crossair commuter plane in 2000. All 10 passengers and the crew
aboard LX Flight 498 were killed when the plane crashed outside of
Zurich minutes after takeoff. An official cause of the crash has not
been released.

Airlines and cellular equipment makers have already begun testing
technology. In July, Qualcomm and American Airlines conducted a
two-hour "proof of concept" flight 30,000 feet over Dallas. They
showed off a service on widely used CDMA, or Code Division Multiple
Access, technology.

Wi-Fi is ready for takeoff
While it could take years for safety issues to be worked out before
cell phones can be used on commercial flights, Wi-Fi technology is
ready today since it presents no safety concerns, Wills said.

"There are no interference issues with wireless Internet access on
planes," he said. "Just the nature of the technology makes managing
data networks easier than cellular networks."

Some international airlines have already begun dabbling in wireless
Internet. German carrier Lufthansa plans to offer wireless Internet
service on all routes between Munich and Frankfurt by 2006. In May,
Lufthansa debuted high-speed Internet access on a flight from Munich
to Los Angeles.

Earlier this month, Singapore Airlines announced it would offer Wi-Fi
on flights in the Singapore and London corridor. Both airlines are
using a service offered by a Boeing subsidiary. The service will let
passengers read e-mail and browse the Web through a network set up on
the plane. They will also be able to plug their laptops into outlets
at every seat.

Singapore Airlines also plans to beam live TV programs to passengers'
laptops by mid-2005. The channel lineup will include four
international news channels, with sports content to be added later,
the airline said.

Because voice and video can be carried over an Internet protocol Wi-Fi
network, passengers will be able to use voice enabled Wi-Fi devices to
talk to people on the ground.

"It really comes down to a race between cellular and Wi-Fi
technology," said Wills.

Price, price, price
More than 60 percent of airlines' revenues come from business
travelers, many of whom would love to see more communication options
on planes. But whether they will use the service comes down to price.
Travel experts warn that if service is too expensive, passengers won't
use it.

"There's no question that the business traveler wants to communicate,"
said Addison Schonland, CEO of Innovation Analysis Group, a travel
consulting and research firm. "But how easy will the phone companies
and airlines make it for them to do it?"

For over a decade, passengers have been able to use phones built into
the backs of airplane seats to make calls to people on the ground. At
roughly $1.99 per minute, the service was too expensive and never
really caught on. In recent years, airlines have decreased the number
of such phones onboard planes. Verizon is the only provider still
offering the service.

Airlines, which have struggled financially in recent years, see big
opportunity in these new services. They not only can use these
services to differentiate themselves from other airlines, but they can
potentially use them as new sources of revenue. Wills believes they
will not make the same mistake this time that they did with seat-back
calling.

"It's in the airlines' best interest to offer an affordable and
reliable service to customers," he said.

More vital communication, more annoying headaches?
The steady infiltration of wireless technology might not thrill all
air travelers. The many who complain about cell phones being used in
restaurants and movie theaters could mourn the loss of one of the last
cell-phone-free environments. Airplanes are uncharted territory for
practitioners of etiquette-straining "cell yell"--inexplicably
shouting into a cell phone regardless of the call's personal nature or
who can overhear. Being one narrow seat away from such callers could
frazzle some flyers' nerves.

"Can you imagine 200 people talking at once?" Schonland asked. "It
will be bedlam. Who will people hate more--the dreaded crying baby or
the guy who talked on his cell phone for two and a half hours?"



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In article , FDM
wrote:

Good news or bad? I wouldn't mind having net access, but cell phones?

As far as I'm concerned, BAD. That much more noise to try to ignore!

--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)

You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument
is that reason doesn't count. Isaac Asimov

Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 18:29:16 -0600, erilar
wrote:

In article , FDM
wrote:

Good news or bad? I wouldn't mind having net access, but cell phones?

As far as I'm concerned, BAD. That much more noise to try to ignore!
Hopefully the latest news about cell phone use damaging
DNA and possibly causing cancer mutations,will take the
bloody things off the market.

"FDM" wrote in message
...
Good news or bad? I wouldn't mind having net access, but cell phones?


http://news.com.com/Feds+move+on+wir...news.1039.2 0

Airlines and cellular equipment makers have already begun testing
technology. In July, Qualcomm and American Airlines conducted a
two-hour "proof of concept" flight 30,000 feet over Dallas. They
showed off a service on widely used CDMA, or Code Division Multiple
Access, technology.

Proof of concept or not, I wonder how they are getting around some of the
technical issues like frequency reuse. The idea behind cellular to begin
with is that the cells are laid out so that frequencies used in one area are
not directly next to frequencies used in another area. Cell companies for
years have placed their cell sites so that buildings, terrain, etc prevent
overlapping of frequencies --- both from site to site, and from cell phone
to site..... to prevent a cell phone transmission being received at more
than one site. Even if the phone & tower negotiate, if I'm transmitting hot
enough, I could potentially "step on" that same frequency at another nearby
site.

Normally, limiting power out of a cell phone, and making sure that each cell
is large enough (amongst the other design considerations I mentioned) help
ensure that this doesn't happen too often.

Look at http://www.lbagroup.com/Images/channels.gif Notice the placement of
the various different channel subsets. There are better pictures around,
but you get the general idea here.

So, now let's think about a plane, up at 30,000 ft or whatever up in the
sky. It now has line of sight to a large number of cell sites, and will in
essence have good signal quality to many different sites. Even if it
selects and only communicates with one tower, that transmission very well
could interfere with another phone/tower transmission happening on that same
frequency (or set of frequencies in the case of Spread Spectrum in CDMA).
Although generally speaking spread spectrum uses a wide bandwidth with low
power, that plane is still going to have line of sight to all sorts of
stuff.

I can think of an example where a ham radio friend of mine brought a
handheld radio transceiver onboard a plane, and transmitted to local
repeater, which is not terribly unlike our initial AMPS 800mhz cellular
systems. He was able to "key up" literally tens of repeaters, because he
was high enough to have great line of sight to these repeaters. He was
transmitting at 5 watts, but that was probably overkill, one watt would have
sufficed.

And those who think that 30,000 ft might affect the strength of the received
signal on the ground, hams have communicated to the Space Shuttle with .5
watt. Our cell phones today probably top out at 1-2 watts, I would guess.
Given the size of the batteries, and lifetimes we get from them, I doubt
they routinely transmitter hotter than that.

My point is that just because the FCC says it's OK, doesn't mean that we'll
have cellular access the day after on planes......

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

Sorry about the OT reply.

Keith

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:21:28 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

Gordon

"Gordon Forbess" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:21:28 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless
technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

Gordon

And you will have to put up with loud obnoxious cell users that you can not
get away from.

"Gordon Forbess" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:21:28 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless
technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

Gordon

And you will have to put up with loud obnoxious cell users that you can not
get away from.

"Gordon Forbess" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:21:28 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless
technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

Gordon

And you will have to put up with loud obnoxious cell users that you can not
get away from.

"Gordon Forbess" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:21:28 -0500, "Keith"
wrote:

I don't pretend to have a great grasp on all the new wireless
technologies,
so perhaps this problem is easily mitigated, but I'd be interested in
hearing the technical arguments on why this should work well.

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

Gordon

Ah ha. I had a feeling they were going to do something like that.

In that case I would wonder about cell phone campatibility. Will my wife's
cricket phone function, which is semi-non-standard? Perhaps limited to a
certain type or certain carrier, certain freq. range?

This isn't too much different from the way they do things now with the
phones built into the seats.

I will tell you this, that the downlink from the plane is unencrypted analog
phone traffic. Although I would never do this because its against FCC
regulation, you can tune to some business band frequencies in the 450mhz
region and hear people talking clear as day on those phones.

Hearing credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account numbers
make me wince to think what someone with less-than-honorable intentions
might do with this.

Standard cell phones are, of course, radio transmitters, and the waves go
where they want...... eesh.

Keith

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 23:42:53 GMT, "Calif Bill"
wrote:

"Gordon Forbess" wrote in message
.. .

As I understand it, the short technical explanation is that the
aircraft will retransmit cell phone traffic through a onboard gateway
(which allows them to charge you, of course) to a satellite, which
will retransmit to the cell network.

And you will have to put up with loud obnoxious cell users that you can not
get away from.

That's the part they need to do a lot of work on. Otherwise, I can
see the potential for an airline who goes "cell phone free."

Gordon