"Rob" wrote in message
oups.com...

Roy Smith wrote:
soon to be student wrote:
Why is the use of cell phones illegal while flying in a aircraft
anyway??

Two basic reasons.

One is that at altitude, you have line of sight to many more cells
compared to standing on the surface. This means many cells pick up
your transmission and try to handle your call.

The second is that as you move at speeds anywhere from 2 to 8 times
what a car in the highway might be doing, your call gets handed off
from cell to cell very quickly.

Both of these things violate the design assumptions used when the cell
system was built out, and thus degrade performance of the cell network
as a whole. It is for this reason that the FCC (not the FAA) makes it
illegal to use a cell phone in an aircraft in flight.

Are these limitations of analog cell phones only, or are they shared by
PCS, CDMA, etc.? Certainly the speed limitation is surmountable for
me. I'd be happy to slow my Grumman Tiger momentarily down to freeway
speed if it meant I could have a live look at the RADAR picture.

-R


I believe it is phone in the 900Mhz band.