Qualcomm Demos In-Flight Cell Phone Service

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=914' target='_blank'>http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=914</a><br /><br /></div><i>"On a special two-hour American Airlines test flight over Texas yesterday, Qualcomm publicly demonstrated its solution for in-flight CDMA cell phone service. The service uses a picocell - a cell phone tower the size of a laptop - to provide in-cabin coverage. Because the picocell is so close, phones automatically emit a weaker signal, preventing interference with plane navigation systems and phone networks on the ground."</i><br /><br />Rich Brome over at Phone Scoop has a good summary of the situation, and links for more information. Whether or not interference as it stands today is real, the use of cell phones on planes certainly clogs up ground towers, causing congestion issues -- so this workaround solution brings us closer to the day when cell phones are legal in planes. Of course, will those of you who like a quiet plane flight survive aviation after that day? 8O

[felixdd]

How does proximity of the tower weaken the phone's broadcast strength? Wouldn't the picocell itself be a source of interference?

As for a quiet flight -- in all seriousness I don't think there will be that many people doing phone calls on the plane. The roar of the engines is too loud already. I think people will just wait until they have landed, or are about to land/take off.

[jimski]

As for a quiet flight -- in all seriousness I don't think there will be that many people doing phone calls on the plane. The roar of the engines is too loud already. I think people will just wait until they have landed, or are about to land/take off.

Actually I think they may just talk louder :bad-words: . And with the weaker signal those batteries will just keep going and going... Glad I picked up a pair of noise canceling headphones last night.

[Janak Parekh]

Actually I think they may just talk louder :bad-words: .
Even though they don't have to -- modern cell phones have background noise canceling technology.

Glad I picked up a pair of noise canceling headphones last night.
:way to go: My Sony noise-canceling headphones are a godsend for plane flights.

--janak

[Newsboy]

For the love of God, someone kill this idea in its infancy. Crying babies and blabbing seniors are too much of annoyance already.

[Philip Colmer]

How does proximity of the tower weaken the phone's broadcast strength? Wouldn't the picocell itself be a source of interference?
Part of the way a mobile phone works is that it has the ability to adjust the strength of its own transmitter, based on how near or far the current base station is.

Under normal circumstances, when you are in a plane, you are quite some distance from a base station and so the phone pumps its signal strength up to maximum. By having the picocell on board, it is like having the tower right next to you, so everything calms down to the minimum signal strength.

--Philip

[Newsboy]

True.

This is also the reason that your battery goes dead faster when you are in a dead zone. Your phone is pumping the signal out at maximum output trying to find a tower, sucking the life out of the battery in no time flat.

[Philip Colmer]

For the love of God, someone kill this idea in its infancy. Crying babies and blabbing seniors are too much of annoyance already.
There is an aspect of this trial that seems to have been overlooked so far ... just because there is a picocell on the plane doesn't mean it has to be connected to the outside world :-)

By having the cell on the plane, it reduces the signal strength of the mobiles, thus avoiding the potential risk of having mobiles turned on. However, if you don't route the calls anywhere, the phone can't be used ...

Somehow, though, I suspect that money will win over common sense and they will allow the calls to take place. Let's just hope it is as some exhorbitant rate, similar to the built-in phones which I've never seen anyone use because they are so expensive.

--Philip

[Jonathan1]

Augh. You think plane rage is rampant now. People on planes are freaking annoying enough. I don't need some idiot sitting next to me chatting it up with Bertha about how fluffy had a bowel obstruction that finally came out really clumpy. Or some other wonderful topic I couldn’t care less about. Where’s the cone of silence when you need it!! Please for the love of god keep people’s sanity and don’t allow cell phones on a plane. Or if they do make it so cost prohibitive that people make calls fast and furious. I don’t care what anyone says no one is so important that they have to be in contact with the rest of the world 24/7. Well maybe the president otherwise. :p

[Newsboy]

...the built-in phones which I've never seen anyone use because they are so expensive.

--Philip

*ahem*

In 1997, using:

- Compaq C140
- Casio QV-10 digital camera (cutting edge VGA resolution!)
- Camera to HPC adapter cable

aaaaand...

- a 14.4 PCMCIA modem card

I used the airphone on a transcontinental flight to upload photos from the digital camera. Also published a blog update to show the pictures to customers of a company I was working for at the time.

As I recall, it ran me something like $40 for 5 minutes, and wasn't terribly effective. Connected at about 2400 baud.

But it impressed the hell out of everyone around me! "The internet? What's that?"

[bjornkeizers]

Actually I think they may just talk louder :bad-words: .
Even though they don't have to -- modern cell phones have background noise canceling technology.


Yeah, what the hell is up with that? I keep telling people: 'you don't have to yell into that thing' but still they don't listen. The more public the place, the louder these *******s get.

[BevHoward]

Just another case of dangerous and prohibited until proven profitable? ;-)

[Brad Adrian]

...I keep telling people: 'you don't have to yell into that thing' but still they don't listen..
One of the reasons that people yell is that the audible feedback that we're so used to having through the earpiece on our landline phones isn't nearly as strong on mobile phones. If the volume on the earpiece were louder, I don't think people would speak so loudly.

[Kati Compton]

...I keep telling people: 'you don't have to yell into that thing' but still they don't listen..
One of the reasons that people yell is that the audible feedback that we're so used to having through the earpiece on our landline phones isn't nearly as strong on mobile phones. If the volume on the earpiece were louder, I don't think people would speak so loudly.
Right - it's a natural (and generally correct except in this case) human tendency to modulate your own volume based on the noise *you* hear. Some medical problems, such as Parkinson's, can mess with the system and make it difficult for people to do this, and there's actually research on creating devices that will provide that feedback too them based on the ambient volume. These devices will lighting one light when they're too quiet, or another when they're too loud.

So it's hard to retrain to speak appropriately on a cell phone. And unfortunately, the more people that are talking on cell phones in an area, the louder the ambient volume for them, and the problem escalates. ;)

[Janak Parekh]

One of the reasons that people yell is that the audible feedback that we're so used to having through the earpiece on our landline phones isn't nearly as strong on mobile phones.
Absolutely correct. In fact, you don't hear yourself on the earpiece -- there is no echo (and there doesn't need to be). And as the ambient background noise increases, people instinctively raise their voice, but cell phones are much smarter than they are.

My other pet peeve is when I call people on cell phones, and they say "what? WHAT?" when it has nothing to do with reception. Increase your volume, people! Don't make me shout in a public space! You don't know how to increase your volume? Well, learn how to. :roll:

Anyway, two of the havens from cell phone abusers have been underground mass transit (subways) and planes. We're slowly going to lose both. :(

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Just another case of dangerous and prohibited until proven profitable? ;-)
The "interference" argument is indeed controversial, but the picocell sidesteps it by using such a local cell that RF output is dramatically decreased in the first place.

More importantly, this does solve the problem of using too much ground bandwidth in the air. Currently, if you use a cell phone, you might use 10-15 towers at any moment while you're on the plane. That would be a disaster if everyone in every plane were using it. This solution nicely aggregates all those users into one single connection.

So I don't think it's quite an open-and-shut case of solely profit motive.

--janak

[bkerrins]

So how do I get one of these for my house? The Cingular reception in my neighborhood is terrible and I only want to be able to use it at home. Maybe after everyone decides cell phones on a plane isn't such a good idea I can pick up one of the units.

[Janak Parekh]

So how do I get one of these for my house? The Cingular reception in my neighborhood is terrible and I only want to be able to use it at home.
A picocell? You're not going to be able to -- the carriers wouldn't allow that. :| There are some third-party antenna solutions that you can try Googling for, but I've heard mixed results. Your best bet is to switch carriers to one that has better coverage where you live.

Maybe after everyone decides cell phones on a plane isn't such a good idea I can pick up one of the units.
Well... these are CDMA prototypes. Cingular uses GSM, so even these won't be useful off a black market.

--janak