Greedy Air NZ to allow calls, texts on new plane

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › Greedy Air NZ to allow calls, texts on new plane

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#436631 8-Feb-2011 00:30

Beccara: Why?

I don't understand why people hold planes as some sacred place where thou shalt not talk. Trains, Bus's and Everywhere else allow you to talk and text as much as you want. Why not planes?

Has anyone considered the economic benefit that would result in less wasted man hours if a company could have its people working while in the air?

I think we dispelled the myth of them crashing planes years if not decades ago so I see no reason not to allow them

I've had an email exchange with the then (and possibly still) GM of Airline Operations for AirNZ, David Morgan in October last year which was followed up with a phone call.

I put it to him that electronics weren't really dangerous given that we're actually allowed to have Cellphones and digital camera, radios etc on our person and they don't require them to be verifiably off and stored in the hold. This washed over him and wasn't answered, but he absolutely insisted that he has three specific events that happened to him where electronics affected the planes systems.

Unfortunately to me, this sounded like a (very well educated and intelligent) person ascribing a degree of causality to some anecdotal events that occurred over a long period of time.

The fact is there's no reproducible method to show that consumer electronics affect airplane avionics. I'm open to correction on this.

At the time I looked into the literature and the events were so rare that the airlines went well out of their way to try and purchase the ACTUAL ITEMS involved when they suspected interference - going so far as trying to buy a kids portable electronic game in one documented case.

On topic though, I don't give an acrobatic copulation what anyone else thinks, or the 'reasoning' behind it... If we start allowing voice calls on planes I start using other airlines or start taking cruises.

Data would be nice, but for the number of people that would use it, and the price of the equipment plus satellite charges... Well, you try and make a business case work.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Beccara

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#436633 8-Feb-2011 00:43

Scuttlebutt was one Boeing's test's was to take the worst most high power cellphone they could expect someone to carry on, break it basically so it was operating in the worst possible setting to generate as much RF as it could and then load up a 737 with 450-odd of these "cellphones" and record changes between the information being feed from the various sensors to those arriving at flight computers and instruments.

The idea being that your average cellphone is 2watts peak EIRP in the worst case I believe and that 450odd of the things pumping 900watts of RF into the cabin should be the worst case that could be made to affect the plane.

It all could just be airlines not wanting an increase in maintenance cost's for checking the EMF shielding in their planes to higher levels.

Most problems are the result of previous solutions...

All comment's I make are my own personal opinion and do not in any way, shape or form reflect the views of current or former employers unless specifically stated

scottjpalmer

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#436636 8-Feb-2011 02:30

Beccara: Thats a good question! Maybe the cell-site would be displaying it's self to phones as the 3 main networks and as such the phones wont attempt a ground connect?

3news said only Vodafone are offering it, not Telecom (and they didn't mention 2degrees).

Looks like http://www.onair.aero/ is the vendor.

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#436637 8-Feb-2011 02:33

NonprayingMantis: the only thing that concerns me, and I'm pretty sure I have noo reason to be worried, is the chance of somebody on the ground accidentally locking onto the plane signal and unwittingly being charged a gajillion dollars for watching keyboardcat on youtube. this has been known to happen with the cellsites on cruise ships being picked up by people on land in whilst port.

I would imagine though that the power of the airplane cell site would only have a range of a few tens of metres so people on the ground could not pick it up.
But if it accidentally got left on whilst the plane was at the departure gate though that could prove pretty expensive for some people

You aren't allowed to make/receive calls during take off/landing so one would assume the service will be shutdown at all times other than mid-flight.

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#436638 8-Feb-2011 04:42

I stumbled upon this http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms/licensees/types-of-licence/general-user-licences/aircraft-cellular-teleco... when trawling RSM for unrelated info.

Of note is:

used on board any aircraft registered in New Zealand and operated in airspace outside the territorial limits of New Zealand

So it doesn't apply inside New Zealand but one would expect this next bit to apply in the similar "within NZ" legislation.

These radio transmitters may only be operated when the aircraft is at an altitude greater than 3000 metres above ground.

This next bit is a very short timeframe, maybe it was to allow the service to be used on the delivery flight and will be superseded to include use within NZ before the service goes live?

2.This notice comes into force on 3 February 2011 and expires on 30 April 2011.

richms

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#436639 8-Feb-2011 06:01

Schedule 2 of that sounds like a jammer to prevent connection to the other networks to me. Interesting that they have chosen 1800MHz GSM only to provide service on, that would mean lots of problems if telecom were to ever get on board since its common to set phones to 3g only with them, and also people do that when using vodafone to avoid constant fallback to GSM with the problems that creates.

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alasta

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#436644 8-Feb-2011 07:13

Beccara: What set of circumstances? All passenger airliners have electrical system have EMF shielding, VOR beacon's run on 100-200mhz range and the DME systems which are the closest to cell ranges run about 40mhz out of the cell bands.

It's not so much the navaids but the radio altimeter that I would be worried about. Fortunately that won't be a problem if phone usage is disallowed during takeoff and landing, but there is good cause to believe that a mobile phone may have been a factor in the Ansett Dash 8 accident back in 1995. The GPWS didn't sound when it was supposed to, yet it was found to be working fine when subsequently tested and there was known to have been a mobile phone call placed at around the time of the accident.

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#436646 8-Feb-2011 07:35

Remember phones like those old Alcatel One Touch Vodafone 2G mobiles?

Remember how they used to make any radio go nuts when transmitting near them?

Could this have originally been the reason they were disallowed in the first place?

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#436650 8-Feb-2011 07:49

Current GSM phones make cheap and unshielded electronics go nuts still. Thats why I have mine on 3g only since my mixer has massive problems picking up GSM noise and sending it to the power amp at full volume.

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#436672 8-Feb-2011 08:58

jjnz1: Remember phones like those old Alcatel One Touch Vodafone 2G mobiles?

Remember how they used to make any radio go nuts when transmitting near them?

Could this have originally been the reason they were disallowed in the first place?

I seem to remember all GSM fones doing that. It was the reason why they were band in so many places like hospitals and a lot businesses band them in Ozz due to the induced noise into digital wireline fones.. There were also reported problems in the early 1990s in Europe where cars with ABS would would have them triggered when a call came in or switching cell sites.. When my current Voda 3G model down trains at work to 2G I still hear that dreaded sound thru my PC speakers..

Regards,

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#436676 8-Feb-2011 09:20

alasta:
Beccara: What set of circumstances? All passenger airliners have electrical system have EMF shielding, VOR beacon's run on 100-200mhz range and the DME systems which are the closest to cell ranges run about 40mhz out of the cell bands.

It's not so much the navaids but the radio altimeter that I would be worried about. Fortunately that won't be a problem if phone usage is disallowed during takeoff and landing, but there is good cause to believe that a mobile phone may have been a factor in the Ansett Dash 8 accident back in 1995. The GPWS didn't sound when it was supposed to, yet it was found to be working fine when subsequently tested and there was known to have been a mobile phone call placed at around the time of the accident.

I suspect someone also was crossing their legs at the same time as the incident.

Correlation is not causality - what is the "good cause to believe"?

And I'll come back to my main point - if cellphone use is ACTUALLY dangerous, why are we allowed to keep them with us? Please don't insult my intelligence by saying it would be too intrusive, inconvenient, expensive to take them off passengers when they board - we all know that nothing is sacrosanct when done in the name of "air safety".

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#436682 8-Feb-2011 09:37

Talkiet: The fact is there's no reproducible method to show that consumer electronics affect airplane avionics. I'm open to correction on this.

Cheers - N

I believe that NASA did some testing that showed interference with GPS signals from a mobile phone.

Remember it's not just the actual frequency that the phone operates on but the harmonics of those frequencies that could cause a problem.

I have seen unusual indications on an ILS, which after having the aircraft equipment checked, the only explanation was interference from a mobile phone. Fortunately we were in visual conditions at the time.

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NonprayingMantis

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#436685 8-Feb-2011 09:42

scottjpalmer:
NonprayingMantis: the only thing that concerns me, and I'm pretty sure I have noo reason to be worried, is the chance of somebody on the ground accidentally locking onto the plane signal and unwittingly being charged a gajillion dollars for watching keyboardcat on youtube. this has been known to happen with the cellsites on cruise ships being picked up by people on land in whilst port.

I would imagine though that the power of the airplane cell site would only have a range of a few tens of metres so people on the ground could not pick it up.
But if it accidentally got left on whilst the plane was at the departure gate though that could prove pretty expensive for some people

You aren't allowed to make/receive calls during take off/landing so one would assume the service will be shutdown at all times other than mid-flight.

Yes I assumed that, but my question was “what if it got left on”. People could rack up thousands of dollars very easily unless there was some authentication.

Talkiet

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#436686 8-Feb-2011 09:42

Technofreak:
Talkiet: The fact is there's no reproducible method to show that consumer electronics affect airplane avionics. I'm open to correction on this.

Cheers - N

I believe that NASA did some testing that showed interference with GPS signals from a mobile phone.

Remember it's not just the actual frequency that the phone operates on but the harmonics of those frequencies that could cause a problem.

I have seen unusual indications on an ILS, which after having the aircraft equipment checked, the only explanation was interference from a mobile phone. Fortunately we were in visual conditions at the time.

The only explanation? I'd agree that the most obvious correlating factor could have been phone use - but 'only explanation'? No, I don't buy that.

I'd love to see the research showing reproducible interference - any idea if it's published?

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#436699 8-Feb-2011 10:00

Aside from the current debates on the dangers of mobile use in the skies.

I'm pleased that this is a step forward in terms of making technology available on flights. However, I agree with the many comments in relation to people talking unbelievably loud on mobiles. This will make unbearably packed flights, even more unpleasant. Given the generally louder environment in flight users will likely increase their voices appropriately.

I think they should encourage the data use instead, and this would be through appropriate pricing, the premium on calling should be increased or the ability to do so should be removed. Comments on the efficiency of the working person are ridiculous, as one person has said, being unreachable will likely increase your efficiency, so that's not a valid argument.

My understanding is that in some Asian countries, talking on public transport is frowned upon, and even have heard of a European tourist being asked to step off for the duration of their call, notably this was on the subway system, not a short-haul domestic flight.

Text messaging and data can enable quick communication in a relatively quiet form that will get the same "urgent" message across without causing any issues.

My thoughts.

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