>They are the reason why you can not use mobiles on a plane. The reason you can't [reliably] use mobiles on a plane is the network is designed for terrestrial

>They are the reason why you can not use mobiles on a plane. The reason you can't [reliably] use mobiles on a plane is the network is designed for terrestrial use with slow handoffs from tower to tower The signal is shaped to keep it aimed more-or-less downward, and is intended to hand-off from tower to tower at "normal" travel speeds (say, up to ~100mph) Could handoffs be designed to work at 500kts? Sure Could towers be designed to aim a notable chunk of signal upwards into the emptiness of sky and space? Sure But why? The overwhelmingly-typical use case is that of billions of people on the ground moving slowly The number of airplanes in the air at any given time is minuscule in comparison