"David Brooks" wrote in message
...
I'm tryint to speed-read all this excellent information, and I still don't
think I have an answer to my question:

By leaving my phone switched on, but *not making an outgoing call*, am I
doing no harm, or negligible harm, to the system?

Assume also that nobody calls me.


Probably not. Digital phones have unique identifiers and are actually
supposed to be picked up by more than one tower at a time. If too many
towers pick up the phone then they electronically assign that phone to just
one tower and the others reject it. Since it is a digital stream, each
frequency can handle many cellular phones. It would be very difficult to bog
down the system with digital phones.

The problem is that the digital signals tend to be too weak, so the phone
frequently switches to analog when you start using it in an airplane. At the
very least, your phone will keep switching from one tower to another,
constantly searching even when you are not talking on it, and that will run
down the battery.

I recall reading somewhere that FCC regulations against using cellular
phones in flight do not apply to digital phones.