Calling from a cell phone when airborne

"Steve" wrote in message
. com...

The FCC regs apply to "Cellular Telephones". The description of
cellphones
in the licensing rules don't include the frequency bands or the modes of
operation that digital phones use. So, technically, digital phones are
not
"cellphones", though marketing types call them cell phones to keep the
average consumer from getting confused.

If you want to get technical, first generation aka 1G (analog), 2G
(digital), and 3G (also digital w/ higher capacity and data rates) phones
are communicate with the base station which covers a small area called a
cell. So technically they are all cellular phones. Also, most 2G phones use
the 1G frequencies. Many 2G phones will handoff to a 1G base station if
there is not a decent signal from a 2G base station. Also, many 1G
operators are reusing their 1G frequencies to provide 2G services on those
frequencies. Some companies like sprint and t-mobile dont have any 1G
frequencies, but even if you have a phone that supports the 1G frequencies,
it will roam onto those 1G frequencies if you go out of their coverage
areas. The only way you can guarantee that you will be on 2G frequencies is
to buy a phone from someone like sprint or t-mobile which only supports
1900MHz or a phone which allows you to disable the 850MHz range though I
have not seen any phones that do that. They normally just allow you to
disable the European frequencies (900/1800) if they are supported.

And just because you are not in a call does not mean you are safe. A cell
phone that is not in use is periodically communicating with the surrounding
base stations whenever it is on. So the only way to ensure you are not
transmitting is to turn it off.