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Transportation Department Proposes Allowing In-Flight Phone Calls (go.com) 103

Posted by BeauHD from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.
Yesterday, France's Le Monde newspaper issued a report, citing documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, that says American and British spies have since 2005 been working on intercepting phone calls and data transfers made from aircraft. Assuming the report is accurate, national security agencies may soon have their hands full if a new proposal by the Department of Transportation becomes official, which would allow each airline to decide whether its passengers will be permitted to make in-flight phone calls using the aircraft's onboard Wi-Fi system. ABC News reports: The Department of Transportation's proposal leaves it up to airlines whether to allow the calls. But carriers would be required to inform passengers at the time they purchase a ticket if the calls are allowed. That would give passengers the opportunity to make other travel arrangements if they don't want to risk the possibility of sitting near passengers making phone calls. The Federal Communications Commission prohibits using mobile phones to make calls during flights, but not Wi-Fi calls. There is a minimum 60-day comment period and the proposal leaves the door open to an outright ban. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the proposal.
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Transportation Department Proposes Allowing In-Flight Phone Calls More

Transportation Department Proposes Allowing In-Flight Phone Calls

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  • For the love of God no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @09:33PM (#53449913)

    Listening to folks yell into their phones passing by or in a restaurant is bad enough, imagine sitting next to one for an eight hour flight. :|

    With no way to escape it.

    Would almost be worth opening the door and jumping to your death from 30,000 feet. . . .

    • Forget jumping. Just throw the phone out the door and the problem is solved. And if they make too much of a fuss tell them that they'll be next if they continue making a fuss.

      Something that I would love to do on the bus sometimes. I've got noise reducing earphones and sometimes I have to shut my podcast off because the idiot is talking so loud that the only way I could hear it would be to damage my ears.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Let's be honest, what's really killing you is the lack of social antennas. I've been next to a baby that was on full wailing for quite some time, despite the mother's best efforts and that was considerably worse than any idiot yapping on the phone. Didn't really want to make me throw myself or the baby off the plane, but I was quite happy I didn't have to deal with that every other hour of the day. Most people keep it short, most people keep a normal conversation volume and most of those who don't will take

      • Why babies cry on planes (Score:5, Informative)

        by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @04:26AM (#53451009) Homepage Journal

        I've been next to a baby that was on full wailing for quite some time, despite the mother's best efforts and that was considerably worse than any idiot yapping on the phone. Didn't really want to make me throw myself or the baby off the plane, but I was quite happy I didn't have to deal with that every other hour of the day.

        In flight the cabin air pressure is reduced as the plane goes up in altitude, to an equivalent altitude of about 9,000 feet when the airplane is at cruising altitude. This reduces stress on the airframe, by about 5-ish PSI on every inch of the cabin outer surface.

        Adults have the ability to clear their eustachian by yawning, but babies generally don't. The extra air pressure causes their ears to ache for the entire flight.

        That's why babies cry during an airplane flight. Mothers don't generally have to deal with it all the time.

        (I wrote the firmware for one of the popular air cabin pressurization systems currently in use.)

        • I've been next to a baby that was on full wailing for quite some time, despite the mother's best efforts and that was considerably worse than any idiot yapping on the phone. Didn't really want to make me throw myself or the baby off the plane, but I was quite happy I didn't have to deal with that every other hour of the day.

          In flight the cabin air pressure is reduced as the plane goes up in altitude, to an equivalent altitude of about 9,000 feet when the airplane is at cruising altitude. This reduces stress on the airframe, by about 5-ish PSI on every inch of the cabin outer surface.

          Adults have the ability to clear their eustachian by yawning, but babies generally don't. The extra air pressure causes their ears to ache for the entire flight.

          That's why babies cry during an airplane flight. Mothers don't generally have to deal with it all the time.

          (I wrote the firmware for one of the popular air cabin pressurization systems currently in use.)

          Yes but a smart parent will feed their baby or give them a pacifier during ascent and descent. I was once on a flight where I literally watched the parents next to me feed their baby while we were sitting on the tarmac finishing the boarding process. That baby screamed for 3 hours after that. It finally STFU and then the dad started playing with it and took its favorite toy. It proceeded to scream for the next 2 hours after that. I wanted to cuff both of those parents on the ears for being complete idi

      • Let's be honest, what's really killing you is the lack of social antennas.

        That's exactly what cellphone society is creating, yes. Well spotted.

      • Most people keep it short, most people keep a normal conversation volume and most of those who don't will take a hint.

        And a few are the kind you want to strangle. But long before the flight was up I'd make a really loud "call" like "YES HELLO... OVER THE ATLANTIC NOW, DOING FINE. EXCEPT THERE'S THIS GUY WHO KEEPS TALKING REALLY, REALLY LOUND ON HIS CELL PHONE FOR AGES NOW, DOESN'T HAVE ANY SOCIAL ANTENNAS AT ALL. I HOPE HE HANGS UP SOON. SEE YOU SOON, LOVE YA" Fighting fire with fire usually works, if he goes psycho with luck they'll cuff him and throw him off the plane. Win-win either way.

        You mean like this? Big Cell Phone Guy [youtube.com]

    • So, First Class will now get private offices with soundproof walls - a return to private train compartments.

      Peasants get noise cancelling headphones, and 2" less legroom to make space for the compartment walls.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      What are you doing walking along a street without headphones in?
      Do you own one of those headphoneless lemo... I mean apples?

    • *Only* 8 hours? Your poor darling! :)

      Trans pacific flights take several hours longer. e.g. Sydney to Vancouver

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Listening to folks yell into their phones passing by or in a restaurant is bad enough, imagine sitting next to one for an eight hour flight. :|

      With no way to escape it.

      Would almost be worth opening the door and jumping to your death from 30,000 feet. . . .

      If they allow phone calls on aircraft I can easily see the rate of air rage incidents increasing by an order of magnitude.

    • Listening to folks yell into their phones passing by or in a restaurant is bad enough, imagine sitting next to one for an eight hour flight. :|

      With no way to escape it.

      Would almost be worth opening the door and jumping to your death from 30,000 feet. . . .

      Sure it can be annoying. But if that is a reason to ban it, then we should be consistent and ban it on busses and trains too.

    • I was on a bus once with Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel talking to his girlfriend for two hours, loud enough for everybody to hear. Although once I got past how incredibly rude and oblivious this guy was, it was actually pretty entertaining, in a soap-opera sort of way.
  • Air travel is bad enough without noise pollution.

  • What's the point (Score:5, Informative)

    by Patent Lover ( 779809 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @09:36PM (#53449921)
    If you're dumb enough to pay for that shitty wifi on flights good luck making a voip call over it. You're lucky to get an email out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      FWIW AT&T wifi calling works fine on many airplanes. The way airplane wifi works causes an unduly high amount of packet loss which completely fucks TCP speeds but many of these newer cellular network transport protocols are 100% UDP based and are vastly superior in high packet loss environments. It's basically the same protocol used by VoLTE. The MOS score is maybe 2-3 but really not bad. It is totally usable and I have made quite a few calls in flight. I wear a headset and talk quietly. Seriously nobod

      • And there's the key, people can make an ass of themselves without a phone, or be polite with one... life is like a box of chocolates.

    • I was on a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Germany in 2006. They announced that since Boeing had decided to shut down Connexion [wikipedia.org], they were opening up the WiFi aboard the plane for everyone to use for free. I fired up my laptop while over the middle of the Atlantic, and used the service to VPN into my office. Got some work done, sent a few emails, and printed a quick document exclaiming in bold "I'm printing this from a plane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!!!!' just for the folks in the office. I a

    • Who's service have you tried? I flew with American Airlines around Thanksgiving and their in-flight wifi was MORE than enough for browsing social media and otherwise keeping me occupied for the 5 1/2 hour flight to LA. Granted I wasn't streaming [much more than occasional vid] and I agree with VoIP being impractical, but I was impressed, and happily occupied.

  • Deja vu? (Score:3)

    by LaughingRadish ( 2694765 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @09:41PM (#53449941) Journal

    Didn't we go through a bunch of no about this a couple years ago?

    • We're trying to figure out if slashdot still defaults to "everyone is an asshole" or if people have improved in the USA

  • In a lipstick tube FTW. OR.... They will have to make cabin separators so they can put all the passengers who want to flap their gums on the cell phone all together and leave normal passengers together so we don't kill them.

    • Cell Phone Jammer In a lipstick tube FTW.

      Congratulations on being the idiot that will make lipstick a prohibited item on airplanes!

      • I dunno. I thought I was being wise to create a diversion. See the badged guys will be checking women and their lipsticks and I will have my covert jammer disguised as something else. You gotta think outside the box in order to get into the box.

        • I dunno. I thought I was being wise to create a diversion. See the badged guys will be checking women and their lipsticks and...

          You would be put on the no-fly list after being caught the first time. Nothing you have stated is wise.

          • Can't get caught if they don't know what to look for. What have you been smoking? Why would I try to fly if I was already on the no fly list? I think you just like to hear your self type.

    • Yeah, cell phone jammer will always be narrow banded and no signal will ever leak and jam the aircraft communications instead.
    • Yeah, they are the ones who get to hold on to dear life by gripping the leather straps bolted to the wings they will sit bareback on during the entire flight. That will be the "talk" section of the plane

  • Another Freedom Brought To You By Trump! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Victory is ours, America! Soon the skies will be as great as our land!

  • your data plan is better then the high cost wifi on the plane

  • Why the NSA feels that a conversation from an air craft is any more worthy of "security" attention than one from somewhere else. Besides, it will pass through a ground station anyway, so why bother with special attention, cost, and required resources.

    As much eavesdropping going on in the name of "security" does little for "terrorism" anyway. It's used far more commonly in drug and financial cases to replace actually doing their job. At best it's used to prove a case; at worst, it's used to see if there's a

  • ....but because cell phones each would be hitting dosens of towers at once vs just a couple on the ground plus this strain wouild be moving rapidly across any given area, causing network problems. Thats why cell calls are banned in flight.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Let's handle phone calls the same way, with a Calling and a No Calling section. The difference from the old days would be that calling in toilets would be specifically encouraged.

  • It will give job security to the TSA for all the extra screening they will need to do.

    Also, don't pay attention to the sudden jump in occurrences of mid-flight manslaughter.

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