Update: FCC ready to continue cell phone ban on flights

Computerworld - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has asked his fellow commissioners to terminate consideration of a proposal to allow cell phone use on airplanes, an FCC spokeswoman said today.

Martin told reporters in an informal gathering yesterday that the cell phone industry had raised concerns whether a single cell phone call from an airplane might connect to several towers at once, instead of just one in normal terrestrial operation, leading to the potential for interference and network problems, the spokeswoman said.

Martin was not planning to issue a statement about the issue, the spokeswoman said, but has circulated an order among the other four FCC commissioners asking for a vote that would terminate the current FCC proceedings to allow cell phone use on airplanes.

A vote to terminate could happen at any time, and would leave in place existing rules that prohibit using cell phones once planes are off the ground, she explained.

The FCC has been seeking comments since 2004 on whether to lift the current ban, resulting in thousands of comments. Flight safety and the annoyance to some passengers are among the comments. However, the FCC's primary focus is the impact of lifting the ban on the cell phone systems on the ground, the spokeswoman said.

The cellular telephone industry, represented by the CTIA in Washington, praised Martin for his new stance on the issue. Cell phone use on planes is never anything we advocated, said CTIA spokesman Joseph Farren. Its our view that such use would cause an unacceptable level of interference with the network on the ground.

American Airlines had no comment on Martins decision, although the airline has conducted a test on using cell phones on planes, going back to mid-2004, said Tim Wagner, a spokesman.

It did work ... although we said all along our primary concern was for wireless communication to the ground for e-mail and Internet access, with cell phone usage a lesser priority, Wagner said. Weve said there would be social implications to cell phone use in the air, but weve never yet said what we would do about that, such as allowing their use during a designated time of the flight or area of the aircraft.

Wed still love to have wireless access, but it has to make sense from a cost standpoint, he said. Obviously, customers would bear some of the cost for wireless access, he added, but American has made no decisions and has no timeline to do so, and has not chosen a wireless provider. Wagnersaid it is commonly understood that airline passengers would like the access, at the right price point.

Voice over wireless IP might create challenges if American were to allow data wireless access for passengers, and flight crews might be able to stipulate that passengers not talk while on a computer, Wagner said. It is a federal offense not to obey flight crew instructions, he added.

For Americans test in the summer of 2004, officials from American, Qualcomm, the FCC and Federal Aviation Admnistration flew over west Texas in an MD 80 jet, with all the cell signals gathered in one pico cell before being transmitted to the ground. One colleague of mine made a cell phone call to family in Argentina, so it did work, he said.