FCC Calls to Say No Cellphones on Airplanes

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

airplane.gifIt took three years for the FCC to state that flying the friendly skies should not include jabbering on our cellphones. In a closing statement, the FCC ruled that research “provides insufficient technical information on whether the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft may cause harmful interference to terrestrial networks.”

As far as I understand it, the original issue was that carriers couldn’t support cellular hand-offs at 300 MPH. However, with digital switching systems in place, this could just be a red herring. I suspect the real issue is WiFi sales in flight, which will eventually involve a little VoIP from airline approved vendors. Now if only hotels could cite “technical issues” to prevent cellphone calls from rooms. That was a pretty little chunk of change they used to get from in-room calling.

FCC says no to mobile calls on airplanes

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