On Thu, 13 Oct 2011, Scott wrote:
> I dunno, I won't use pvc for air anymore. I have, however, flown 250,000
> miles (at least) having forgotten my phone was powered up in my backpack, and
> the plane has never so much as hiccuped. I tend to be skeptical that a $200
> million flying radio is going to be equipped with anything that has any
> issues with a phone's cellular radio. I mean, most planes in the U.S. are
> rarely more than 40,000 feet off the ground, and most of the flights I take
> are at about 20,000 feet. That's four miles. My phone easily has a range of
> four miles, which means all those phones on the ground are emitting something
> that could interfere with the plane too. The cell phone frenzy is one of
> those things that will convince us that we were retarded in 30 years.
It just so happens that the company I work for puts cellular modems on
commercial airliners. It's how we deliver broadband internet to
passengers. We have over 2000 planes flying around the country every day,
squawking back and forth to the ground via standard cellular technology.
We have been doing so for 3 years.
The prohibition against cell use on planes is for passenger comfort,
and security, not technical reasons. Largely the same reason we can't
provide VOIP on commercial lines, but we can on private planes, and they
can in Europe.
--
David Hillman
PS You'd be surprised how often commercial jets crack 40k, but it's
irrelevant. We get hundreds of miles of range from our antennas.
|