You can make phone calls on planes now? WTF?!?!?!?

**Potemkine** · 02-21-09, 02:43 PM

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tec...es.airline.cnn

So apparently the technology now exists that allows you to use your phone while in the air and not disrupt communication. You can send email, texts and voice. It is still banned in the US. Something tells me however, that will change.

Very Cool.

**asianator365** · 02-21-09, 03:04 PM

Yeah dude. Some Middle Eastern airline already lets you do it.

**Potemkine** · 02-21-09, 03:09 PM

<--------- travels to the middle east all the time.

/sarcasm

**Red_Lizard2** · 02-21-09, 03:24 PM

wasn't it proven unoffically awhile ago that cell phones don't eff up communications?

still i dunno if i want people to be able to use them, i mean you thought airline travel was annoying before....

And lastly the middle eastern one probably has it so people can go through with their terrorism plot while in the air :P I kid i kid!

**8Gigs8** · 02-21-09, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Red_Lizard2

still i dunno if i want people to be able to use them, i mean you thought airline travel was annoying before....

I always thought it was more of an annoyance thing, just like all electronics being off til you reach a certain altitude...I sure don't want to listen to 50 conversations while i'm flying, that'd make flying worse than it already is.

**Agent** · 02-21-09, 03:28 PM

Hm, I thought this would have been existent by now.

Anyway, youve been able to use a skyphone or whatever in delta airlines for like a decade now, Im not sure if delta is still around but thats not the point.

**Potemkine** · 02-21-09, 03:29 PM

yeah but its different when its your own phone

**SJA** · 02-21-09, 03:31 PM

Yea, most companies are using INMARSAT as the data link and run a mini-GSM node in the aircraft. They use a drain line antenna that absorbs all of your phone's signal so it doesnt reach any ground based towers and cause trouble. Emirates was the test bed for the company that is doing the majority of this product (aircell), but I think Virgin Atlantic, JAL, Qantas have a few modified planes running and the majority of the US airlines are going to install on their long haul heavies in the near future.

Red the big problem isnt so much cell phones interrupting anything in the aircraft, its that your phone moving through cell networks at that speed totally hoses up routing and can bring the network to its knees. There isnt much on a bird these days that isnt EMI shielded to death, and most cells dont operate in any frequency range that the aircraft shares. I fly all the time on helos with my cell on doing text messages to the ground during testing.

Btw, Emirates in flight entertainment system is shit hot.

**ninja|oaklandr** · 02-21-09, 07:13 PM

This is a bad idea. Text, IM, e-mail, good. Voice, bad.

I get annoyed enough when people talk up until the last second during boarding and right as the planes lands. These same people will be on it ever minute of the flight.

**JudgeMoDollas** · 02-21-09, 07:26 PM

I love it when people are crashing that they send a flurry of texts and calls and when you hear what the captain said last, its perfectly clear. Think about the hudson River! At least a hundred texts where sent in 4 minutes.