Cell Phones and Airplanes

Hey gang,


So I just got back from a business trip to New Orleans. My travel consided 4 plane rides from LA to Las Vegas, Houston to Clevland to New Orleans, and then New Orleans to Atlanta and Atlanta back to LA.

Not once could I get my cell phone to even get service once the plane had taken off. I made a point to ask everyone around me to check their phones for service. I think between all the passengers I surveyed I got every type of phone, and service provider. Not one person had service on any of the flights I was on.


Conclusion: All of the phone calls made from flight 93 were faked. If they didnt work this last week, they sure as hell didn't work on 9/11

Good job.

Ask the flight attendents about 9/11 next time- regarding how phone calls got through.

I know quite a lot a bit about this very topic. Back in 2001 TDMA/CDMA towers could not get calls on plane. Companies at that time were in the process of putting up GSM based towers. If you have a quad band GSM phone and all the conditions are right at a lower altitude you have a chance. On an older network back in 2001 though it simply was NOT POSSIBLE! This one of the things that got my attention because of line of work and knowing that there is no way it could happen.

Until very recently, you were not supposed to even try to use your phone on a plane. They just made it OK, and I know I read somewhere that they had done something to the planes to make it possible. Look at it like this: Chances are if you are anywhere more than three miles from a tower (roughly 18000 feet) you will not have service. Normally the towers are spaced so that just when you are leaving one towers reception, you are coming into another. On a plane, you are 30000 feet up (roughly five miles) so the possibility of getting reception is nill. This is not a guess. You may have it for a few minutes after takeoff if you're lucky. I'm not sure how they're fixing this, but it's prolly a repeater (or even a mini cell tower) right in the plane somewhere. I used to be into radio communications alot (in the late 70's when CB's were big) and I was amazed with cell technology. I looked into this extensively after I woke up, and there is no chance that ALL of those calls could have been completed. Mayber a few if the planes were low enough. But some of those calls were better quality than alot of people get on their landlines. Just not possible.