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At 09:11 PM 9/25/2006 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:
Lennart Börjeson wrote:
I wonder if there is something new in the regulations concerning in-flight use of WiFi. My brand-new SonyEricsson P990 has a "Flight mode" which turns off the GSM, UMTS, Bluetooth and WiFi tranceivers, and disables the FM-radio just like its predescessors (P800, P900 etc), but (and this is a big "but") the WiFi can be enabled independently of the "Flight mode". This is not a bug, it is explicitly mentioned several times in the manual that this is the way it is supposed to work. Isn't some airlines experimenting with in-flight WiFi sercvices?
United Airlines got FAA approval for providing on-board wirelewss services in mid-2005.
/Per Jessen, Zürich
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It should be pointed out that WiFi uses much lower power levels than cellular phones are capable of, and that the frequencies used in either case, are not used for aircraft navigation or communication. Aircraft communication is in the 100 to 130 MHz range, except over the ocean, when it is in the HF range. Navigation is in the 900 to 1300 MHz range, and so is the transponder, which identifies the airplane to ground controllers. Certainly, a high power transmitter could be a problem with aircraft control circuits, but even a cellular phone only puts out about 2.5 watts, tops. A previous correspandent has pointed out that FCC, not FAA, precluded use of cellular equipment on aircraft, and did not (AFAIK) preclude WiFi on the plane. --doug