Airbus' Magic In-flight Cell Phone Technology May Be Make-Believe

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1650205,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1650205,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Airbus makes it possible to make in-flight cell phone calls. Is it a real technology advancement, or does it work like my anti-lion powder?"</i><br /><br />Guy Kewney makes some really interesting and funny points about the state of cell phone use on airplanes. I can't help but agree with him. Give it a read, and tell me what you think.

[Jason Dunn]

Heh...great story! I've met Guy once, and he's every bit as caustic in person as in his writing. And this is comign from me, a fellow caustic person. :lol:

[rbrome]

Guy Kewney is an idiot.

(sigh)... okay, I take that back. But he is terribly misinformed on this issue.

The more imporant cell-phone ban is from the FCC, not the FAA, and it's about interference on the ground, not with the plane.

Cell phone networks are designed to communicate with phones on the ground, moving no more than 100 MPH. Cell phone technology in general has always been designed using critical assumptions about how many towers your phone might "reach" at one time, how close those towers are to each other, and how fast you might be moving.

All that goes out the window when you're at 30,000 feet and going 500 MPH. If you use your phone at cruising altitude, your phone might be in range of hundreds of cell towers at once, some hundreds of miles apart on the ground. Add in the speed you're going, and you've got a situation that wreaks complete havoc with cell-phone networks.

Plus your phone's radio is working overtime to keep track of all the towers, which drains your battery much faster than normal.

But it's the networks where the real problems would be. There's all kinds of incredibly complex planning that goes into designing a cell phone network. It's not as simple as "put up a tower where you need coverage". There are all kinds of interference and frequency re-use factors, all of which rely on the assumption that the customers will be on the ground, with the range of both the towers and the phones limited by the terrain.

So one or two phones in the skies can work (as they do now, as some people have tried and discovered,) but if everyone started using phones on planes, it would be an interference nightmare. The cell-phone networks would completely melt down. It just wouldn't work.

[Jason Dunn]

It's always nice when someone as informed as you are weighs in Rich. Very interesting points!

[Kris Kumar]

Thanks Rich, now it makes sense why Qualcomm and Airbus are testing in-plane picocell tower.

But I do have to give Guy some credit for a very funny article...
"Fly this plane to Cuba or I switch on this cell phone!"

:rotfl: