brian@uunet.uu.net> (05/18/91)
In article <telecom11.362.4@eecs.nwu.edu> geek@media-lab.media.mit. edu.media.mit.edu (Chris Schmandt) writes: > Recently I've gotten rather fond of placing calls while sitting on the > plane at the gate. Good for last minute things (esp. if you can board > early and try to get some work done) and getting arrival time messages > out that might actually be correct! (also much cheaper and clearer > than Airfone) Actually, the avionics in a plane undergo some incredible testing for succeptibility to RFI. They are tested to not be affected by flying right by a 50 MegaWatt television transmitter. I doubt seriously that a 600 mw cell phone is going to be an issue. Clearly you don't want to use a cell phone in a plane as it would tie up a *lot* of cells. However, there are mechanisms within the cellular system to keep this from being catastrophic. It's just resource wastefull, since cells that reuse the same channel must be shut down (on that channel). After all, it's no worse than someone using a handheld cell phone from the 80th floor of a building or from atop a mountain. brian [Moderator's Note: Come to think of it, I've used my handheld a couple times from the observation deck at Sears Tower here, and from the Hancock Center. In fact, in the Hancock Center the Traffic Reporters have their office: you look through a glass window and a sign says to dial *123 on your Ameritech cell phone to talk to the person on duty. I wonder why they encourage a cell call like that from such a height. Of course, aircraft are quite a bit higher. PAT]