Reply #25: "Can work in almost all phases of a commercial flight" [View All]

[Bolo Boffin]

http://slate.msn.com/id/1008297/
http://home.t-online.de/home/susanne.studt/text_5.htm

When they can get away with it, passengers often disregard those rules - as did passengers on the hijacked jets, in response to an obvious emergency. And news of those desperate calls has left many people wondering how, and how well, cell phones work on airplanes in flight, and whether their use does interfere with other communications signals. According to industry experts, it is possible to use cell phones with varying success during the ascent and descent of commercial airline flights, although the difficulty of maintaining a signal appears to increase as planes gain altitude.

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles. "The fact of the matter is that cell phones can work in almost all phases of a commercial flight," said Marvin Sirbu, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "An excess of caution prevents us from doing so, of course, because we are so worried about the safety of air travel."

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