Today's mobile phone technology troubles 4155

It's not that the aircraft are faulty or that the airlines are cheap.

The way the FAA certifies avionics, the manufacturer is required to certify what levels of interference each device can tolerate in each of dozens of RF bands. No commercially available avionics have been certified against the levels of emissions that cell phones produce by necessity.

To fix that, the mfrs would be required to go back and recertify their existing equipment can withstand the interference. Ad hoc testing shows that the vast majority would pbutt. However, that's equipment that has already been sold and paid for, so there's no reason for the mfr to do it. They might have some incentive to do it for new equipment, but as long as there's still a single piece of equipment anywhere on the plane that isn't rated for it, the airlines can't allow cell phones to be used, so there's no reason to pay more to replace anything less than 100%.

Of course, most airlines are so bankrupt they can't even afford to upgrade their existing planes to GPS and LCD displays; they're still stuck using 70s equipment on all but the newest planes (some are even buying new planes without modern electronics to save money). If they can't go back and update that stuff for safety reasons, they're certainly not going to do it just to allow customers to use cell phones instead of the highly profitable Airfones.

S

-- Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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