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On Sunday 24 September 2006 23:27, Lennart Börjeson wrote:
Isn't some airlines experimenting with in-flight WiFi sercvices?
Yes, Boeing wanted to make an inflight Internet service available. There is also a plan for an in-cabin cellular service via an on-board "cell tower". (Of course they want money for it....) History: The original push for cell phone restrictions was not from the FAA, but rather from the FCC and was requested by the cell carriers. The reason was ground cell tower systems were never designed for your phone to be able to light up 150 towers at the same time as it can from 30,000 feet. The system was designed for your phone to prefer its own cell company's towers, and only connect to other towers when it could find none of its own. Further it was expected that your phone would see at most 5 towers at a time. Systems weren't intended to have to negotiate call hand off among cell towers from 10 different companies over a two or three state area. (or maybe 3 countries in Europe). Further, phones in planes would be all talking on their highest power levels, and constantly searching for towers. This causes system thrashing of the provider infrastructure. (Whether this has changed since the arrival of GSM is unclear.) The "cell tower in a plane" idea causes the phones to drop back to their lowest power levels (reducing the chance for interference with cockpit systems), and the in-plane cell would relay through an antenna on the belly to special ground stations. Then 911 happened, and it seems unlikely that anyone will soon want to provide a communication method to the bad guys, especially the bad guys who want to send a signal from their seat to their suitcase in the cargo bay, or their home to ... well you get the picture. So I'm not expecting this to happen any time soon... -- _____________________________________ John Andersen