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Cellphones on planes banned for crowd control issues?

by Donald Melanson posted Apr 9th 2007 @ 11:10AM

While interference has long been the official explanation for why cellphones have been off-limits on airplanes, that hasn't stopped folks from speculating about other possible motivations behind the ban, with the latest bit of rumination on the subject coming to us from Mike Elgan of Computerworld. According to Elgan, one of the "real reasons" cellphones aren't allowed on flights is because of the airlines' fear of crowd control problems should phones be permitted, including the possibility that disputes could erupt among passengers as a result of rude behavior (a pretty safe bet). He also suggests that the airlines prefer to have passengers "ignorant" about problems on the ground during flights, although that issue doesn't seem to have stopped airlines from providing their own phones. Among other reasons, Elgan claims that the government wants to keep the ban in order to avoid the expense of having to test and certify every gadget for use on planes. Of course, there's also the possibility that cellphones on planes are just a really bad idea, but unfortunately we're not the ones that make these decisions.

[Via Slashdot]

FCC declares in-flight cellphones a dead issue for now

by Evan Blass posted Apr 3rd 2007 @ 10:05PM

Not that there was ever really much doubt that the rest of the commission would take Chairman Kevin Martin's lead, but now it's official: in-flight cellphones are a dead issue for the time being, as far as the FCC is concerned at least. The masters of the airwaves issued a statement today saying that they would not move forward with the proceedings which had been underway to revisit the current ban, citing "insufficient technical information on whether the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft may cause harmful interference to terrestrial networks." Of course the fact that thousands of people called the agency bitching and moaning about the likely cacophony of flying chatterboxes probably didn't help matters much, nor did the blasé attitude most of the major airlines seem to have about this. Hopeful sky talkers can take some solace in the commission's claim that it could reconsider its decision in the future pending "appropriate technical data," and if nothing else, AirCell's impending in-flight WiFi will likely enable VoIP sooner rather than later -- although voice services will initially be locked out. So, no gabbing on the plane quite yet, which is just fine with us, because we prefer to be knocked out cold the whole flight anyway.