FCC and the FAA

I've never once turned off my phone on any flight that I've personally done. About the only nuisance I've ever noticed is the noise you get in your headset when the phone is trying to connect with a tower and that was only with the phone right next to the headset cord. I say let them stay on.

I turn it off when riding however. Mainly be cause they ask and also I don't know what wires are running near me, and I doubt the pilots want to listen to my phone trying to grab a tower...
Stupid GSM phones...
 
I will start the social norm of "if you've got a cellphone in your ear, I do not hear you". :)

Actually, I already do that.

I think the FCC has bigger fish to fry but what do I know. I'd be more excited if the coax cable that is in my house was deemed "my property" so I had a choice of cable television and Internet providers but now I have to maintain that for Cox so they can decide that I need to pay $100/month for religious and Kardashian programming.

But yay, I can use my cellphone! Wait, I can't get a signal at 30,000 feet and .80. Bummer.

Sent from my free Obama Phone
 
I normally keep my phone on while I am flying myself and sometimes turn it off when I am riding in the back. But I think the biggest danger to allowing people full access to their electronic devices while flying is just that they will pay even less attention to flight crew than they do now. If they can't pay attention for 5 minutes while on the ground then they're definitely not going to pay attention to the flight crew when an emergency happens in the air.
 
I normally keep my phone on while I am flying myself and sometimes turn it off when I am riding in the back. But I think the biggest danger to allowing people full access to their electronic devices while flying is just that they will pay even less attention to flight crew than they do now. If they can't pay attention for 5 minutes while on the ground then they're definitely not going to pay attention to the flight crew when an emergency happens in the air.
I understand the argument and have heard the attention argument pertaining to this issue. Using the same logic, shouldn't you ban reading books, newspapers and magazines during those same periods of flight?
 
Totally, but the highest I've gotten good enough cell phone reception to make a call is about 2500 AGL in flat country. This is on Verizon no less. In the mountains, below the peaks, PERFECT signal, for better or worse. :) I agree though, BUT, I doubt anyone will be yapping on their phones the entire flight. Unless they put a repeater on the plane, which would be dumb.

I've used a verizon phone to make a call at ~10,000ft before. The voice quality wasn't spectacular, but we could communicate.
 
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