It took three years for the FCC to state that flying the friendly skies should not include jabbering on our cellphones. In a closing statement, the FCC ruled that research “provides insufficient technical information on whether the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft may cause harmful interference to terrestrial networks.”
As far as I understand it, the original issue was that carriers couldn’t support cellular hand-offs at 300 MPH. However, with digital switching systems in place, this could just be a red herring. I suspect the real issue is WiFi sales in flight, which will eventually involve a little VoIP from airline approved vendors. Now if only hotels could cite “technical issues” to prevent cellphone calls from rooms. That was a pretty little chunk of change they used to get from in-room calling.
