Ars Looks At In-Flight Internet — State of the Art vs. Things To Come

Ars Technica has posted an absorbing article about the short history of Internet and cell-phone access for passengers aboard commercial airplanes, which does a lot to sate my curiosity about the factors holding it back, and gives some ideas about what to look forward to. An excerpt: "Despite the volume of equipped aircraft, we're still in the early days and the continued availability of mile-high WiFi is certainly not guaranteed. It's an expensive, long-term investment to supply consistent and usable broadband Internet service at 35,000 feet. Surveys show people want access, but it's unclear how much (or even if) they'll pay for it. Aircell says that 20 percent of passengers on equipped cross-country flights use its service, but it's mum about numbers on shorter segments."

Re:Quick response from a pilot

[hubie]

I'm part of a research group where we fly all sorts of electronic crap on helicopters. We typically take off and land with computers and other stuff running. However, as an example of what you talk about, we have had a flight or two where we are flying and the pilot asks us "OK, who has their phone on?" because he can pick up the interference (I'm not sure exactly, but I think it was from GSM phones).

Re:Takeoff/landing sequence key for shorter flight

[Alioth]

Radio interference from cell phones is real.

A few years ago I was flying (privately, in a light aircraft). I was flying with a friend on a trip, and it was to be his first real instrument approach (in the rain, at night). I was at the time instrument current.

And it was a good job too. Seconds after ATC cleared us for the approach, his wife called and his phone went off. Immediately, all audio was obliterated by "bip b b bip b b bip b b bip b b bip BRRRRRRRR" (if you own a GSM phone, you'll know the sound if you've ever left it near your car radio, or any audio equipment). If ATC had called at that moment to tell us to do something else, we wouldn't have heard a thing over that noise. Fortunately he could hand over to me and I could continue the approach while he dug his phone out and switched it off.

At the very least it was highly distracting, at the worst, ATC might have wanted to tell us something important and we'd have missed it.