Airline passengers abroad could soon find themselves sitting in chatter class. In the past two weeks, regulatory authorities and individual airlines in Europe have taken steps to allow in-flight cellphone use—not that you’ll be able to phone home while flying over the United States anytime soon.
The British equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission approved on Monday all non-3G mobile calls aboard aircraft registered in the United Kingdom, although the country’s civil aviation authority would likely need to approve each airline’s plans for how it would work. (Among other things, flight crews would need to be trained in such niceties as how to cut off gabby chit-chatters.) Elsewhere in Europe, Air France is testing cellphones aboard several Airbus A318s, while Virgin Atlantic, British Midland and Ryanair have all expressed early interest in their own programs. And Emirates Airlines, which already touts such over-the-top amenities as in-flight showers aboard its forthcoming A380 flights, launched cellphone use last month, expecting to add its AeroMobile service to the entire fleet within a few years.
Across the pond, however, in-flight cellphone use is still illegal over the States, and likely will remain that way. That may seem strange in the birthplace of the iPhone, but it’s precisely because mobile devices are ubiquitous on the ground, surveys show, that consumer sentiment remains overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the skies as the last bastion of freedom from phone chatter.
At least that’s what the Federal Communications Commission found when it attempted to overturn the ban. The agency had long opposed cellphones on planes because of potential interference with ground-based networks, until new tech solved the problem. The key is pico-cell technology—cellphone calls are routed through a small receiver on the plane, which relays transmissions to the ground via a separate air-to-ground network. That lowers the power of the cellphone signal and reduces the chances of interference with other cellphone calls on the ground.
But if airborne mobile proponents thought they could fight the law on networks alone, they were mistaken: The FCC received around 8000 comments, a large number of them from individuals opposed to the prospect of cellphone cacophony at 30,000 ft. The Flight Attendants Association also filed strong objections, saying it feared a sharp rise in rage incidents. And there was even a security warning from the Department of Homeland Security, which said terrorists could use mobile devices to detonate onboard explosives more easily—and coordinate attacks. It’s unclear how much that influenced the FCC to hold off, but the agency did, in fact, officially end any consideration of in-flight cellphone calls last year. Last week, an FCC spokeswoman confirmed to PopularMechanics.com that the agency presently has no interest in revisiting the question, even if experiments abroad demonstrate that most opponents’ fears are unfounded.
Another holdup has been aviation safety. The Federal Aviation Administration has barred the use of mobile phones on U.S. flights for years because of potential interference with a plane’s navigational signals. Those concerns might diminish once the foreign airlines’ test results come in. However, one study at Carnegie Mellon University found that passengers were surreptitiously making cellphone calls despite the ban, and suggested that there were around 25 incidents of interference with aircraft communications each year (although the evidence that this was caused by cellphones is circumstantial). Other experts note that no accidents have been directly tied to use of cellphones. FAA spokesman Les Dorr told PM that as long as the FCC is opposed, “it’s a moot point anyway.”
Airlines in the U.S. could, of course, push for cellphones if they thought their customers really wanted it. Instead, they’re competing to be the first to offer wireless Internet access. A few months ago JetBlue started its limited in-flight broadband Wi-Fi service on a few aircraft, in partnership with Yahoo and Research in Motion; Blackberry users can send and receive e-mail from any account, while laptop users are limited to Yahoo for their e-mailing and instant messaging. American Airlines and Virgin America are also working with U.S. provider AirCell to roll out Web browsing and e-mail capabilities, and just won FAA approval to start installing the hardware aboard American’s 767-200 fleet. Southwest and Alaska Airlines are also planning Wi-Fi experiments of their own.
But if foreign airlines can make a strong case, it might just be a matter of time before cellphones literally reach new heights. Some airlines are already laying out ground rules for civilized usage, beyond cinema-style reminders to switch to silent or vibrate mode. Emirates, for example, limits calls to five or six at a time and gives flight crews the power to turn off voice communications altogether—sleeping on planes is hard enough already. But the airline, like several others racing for a mobile rollout, already had seat-back phones handling more than 7000 calls a month before mobile devices were allowed, so it had reason to expect a smooth transition. On the other hand, many U.S. airlines removed in-seat phones because their high cost made them impractical. Verizon’s Airfones cost callers about $5 to connect and $7 to $10 per minute on long-distance flights. Indeed, onboard calls won’t ever be free—it likely will cost significantly more than it does on the ground—and, ultimately, that may be the most effective brake on excessive use.
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