Why Can't I Use My Cell Phone on a Plane? Ask Call Carriers | Hacker News Reader

Why Can't I Use My Cell Phone on a Plane? Ask Call Carriers

wired.com

10 pointsgasull11 comments

You can't use it on a plane because no one wants to be forced to hear someone talk on the phone for an entire 2+ hour flight and we certainly dont want to hear people on planes talking over each other.

+1 for that - I am dreading the day that people are able to talk on their phones on the plane. Cue massive increase in 'air rage' when it happens!

This point can't be emphasized enough. If this BS ever happens, I will pay $50-$100 more per flight to be on an airline that _bans_ in air cell phone usage.

Why not charge people extra to sit in acoustically partitioned sections??

fine with that as long as its the phone users who are being charged extra to sit there.

Right, that's what i meant. Another option is noise cancelling headphones. They're available cheaply enough that I'm surprised they aren't available to rent from the airlines.

Also, ear plugs work wonders. I never fly without them.

Still. Doesn't seem like justification for a government ban.

You could have a 'talkers' section like they used to have a smokers section.

I'd heard this before, and it just doesn't hold as an argument.

a. Someone can do this now, they just have to pay the rates for in-flight phones.

b. If you're going to ban cell-phones on the basis of how much they annoy other passengers, you'll also have to ban babies.

" If you're going to ban cell-phones on the basis of how much they annoy other passengers, you'll also have to ban babies."

I'm in!

The synopsis of the article is that it's technically tricky to enable cell phones but not impossible. The problem is that cell phones hit hundreds of towers from a mile up. Instead enabled planes would have a local cell and use radio noise to block traffic to ground based towers.

The main reason the ban has remained in place is public opposition to sitting next to someone talking on a cell phone. Which makes sense to me. Air travel is hardly comfortable.

But, given that there's wifi, you can still use VoIP phones. Those that really need service still have a means of sending their voice down to ground; it just inconveniences those who pay for specific (ground) cell coverage, that's never guaranteed to work outside of its physical region, let alone in the air, anyway.

Also, even if the plane doesn't have wifi, don't satellite phones still work?

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