Financial concerns stymie on-board cell phone calls
Airlines, cell phone companies, and the government see little to be gained from even studying the issue; “cultivating uncertainty to maintain the existing ban”
Have you ever turned your cell phone on while the airplane was in motion? If so, you probably did so because you did not believe the claim that it would interfere with flight avionics to be completely bogus — a position that mounting evidence has vindicated as correct. At the very least, it is clear that the federal aviation authorities have never possessed any evidence that cell phone use was of threat to anything other than the sanity of fellow passengers. “The government’s dirty little secret,” report Computer World’s Mike Elgan, “is that it cultivates uncertainty about the effects of phones in airplanes as a way to maintain the existing ban without having to confront the expense and inconvenience to airlines and wireless carriers of allowing them.” This was in evidence again recently, when the FCC decided to maintain the ban.
As Elgan explains, there are two distinct technical issues with allowing cell phone use on planes: that they might intefere with onboard avionics (a problem for the FAA); and that they might disrupt cell tower systems (a problem for the FCC). The truth is, both problems can be solved; the question is who is going to pay. “If real testing were done” Egan writes, “it would become obvious that airplanes could be designed or retrofitted with shielding and communications systems that would enable safe calling through all phases of flight. But that would cost money.” The airlines are also looking to profit themselves from plane-to-ground communications, and banning cell phones gives them leverage as the prepare for on-board Wi-Fi in the future.
Other parties face significant costs from allowing widespread cell phone use. The disruption to cell phone towers, for instance, could be solved if carriers overhauled the software they use to manage calls, “but the fix would cost money. The ban is cheaper.”
Even the government sees big expenses. According to Egan, if all electronics were permitted onboard, they would have to undergo a new round of certification testing — “which the government doesn’t want to spend the money to do.”
