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No more airplane mode? EU to allow calls on flights
- kylehotchkiss 4y agough, here comes the loud HEY I'M ON THE PLANE. LOOK AT ME I'M TRAVELING. %NAME OF CABIN CLASS% %BRAG ABOUT DESTINATION%. This might actually be annoying enough to convert people to other transport modes (that or everybody will end up forking out for Bose 700s)
- sebzim4500 4y agoWhat other transport modes exist that don't share this problem?
- jdavis703 4y agoThe “quiet car” on medium-haul passenger rail routes (e.g. Acela in the US.) or a sleeper car on long-haul rail or a first class “private room” on airlines like Emirates.
- tinus_hn 4y agoIn the Netherlands the quiet car is the worst because all you hear is the antisocial people ignoring the signs. At least in the other cars they are drowned out by the normal people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- maest 4y agoThis does not somehow make it okay to introduce more suffering for this particular mode of transportaion.
- gardenfelder 4y agoMy experience with noise cancelling headsets has been that they are great for background airplane noise, and not so good with screaming babies and their parents rattling banter. It seems unlikely that we are going to be protected from people on their cell phones.
- williamscales 4y agoI like to use noise cancelling headphones over earplugs. It seems to work fairly well for me.
- ant6n 4y agoI use both at the same time.
- williamscales 4y agoThat's what I was trying to say but I can see how my comment was ambiguous.
- rjh29 4y agoThe latest headsets are quite adequate at cancelling out voices, especially if you are playing music (or just white noise).
- bagels 4y agoWe already put up with screaming children and communicable diseases to fly because the utility is so high. Hard to imagine switching over annoying phone calls. Not only that, but you have the same problem on busses and trains.
- chronsk830 4y ago[flagged]
- LAC-Tech 4y agoI'd gladly convert to other transport modes, but somehow I don't think a 2100km high speed rail line over the sea is going to happen any time soon.
- HWR_14 4y agoI hope they maintain voice/video calls being illegal on flights. I have no desire to be stuck in an airplane that sounds like an open floorplan office. But please feel free to let customers browse TikTok with their headphones on.
- Beltalowda 4y ago> But please feel free to let customers browse TikTok with their headphones on. If my experience with trains is anything to go by then I can guarantee you that there will be at least one person doing it without the headphones and volume set to 100%.
- HWR_14 4y agoThat's a problem with saved content as well. I have yet to notice that problem on planes like it is on trains. Although this might be because the people who plan ahead to download content are more likely to remember headphones.
- Mattasher 4y agoI suspect it's more a function of cost and class. The people who pay $500 to fly aren't the same as the people who pay $2.50 to be on the subway, or jump the turnstile altogether.
- end_of_line 4y ago500$ is a quite average price for the country I live in. Of course I don't mean cheap airlines, only the national ones.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> it's more a function of cost and class A notable difference between economy and front cabin is the passengers. Mostly good: pets and kids are uncannily well behaved. Sometimes bad, e.g. more arguing.
- 4y ago
- mortenjorck 4y agoNow that one major market is finally doing it, this will spread and eventually become the norm. What I hope we don’t lose in the process is “airplane mode” as a concept, even if the name becomes an anachronism. Being able to temporarily “unplug the cable” from a wireless device is a valuable feature, even if it’s no longer required by regulation.
- SoftTalker 4y agoI think if it's not required it is definitely going to go away. Trackers want to track. This goes for ad networks as well as TLAs.
- pixelpoet 4y agoI hope people vote with their wallets then, but realistically speaking people just buy whatever Apple throws out :(
- Jorengarenar 4y agoI mean, it's not a feature which would get my "voting" attention. While I do hope for it to stay, I don't recall any situation when I wanted for my phone to stop doing its primary (well, at least for me still it is primary) function of receiving phone call and SMS.
- sdenton4 4y agoIt's a helpful low-power mode, especially when traveling in areas where you no there's no signal.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Jorengarenar 4y agoOh right, I forgot as I don't travel too much and almost whole Poland is reasonably well covered.
- throw0101c 4y agoAt the very least I hope they disallow things on take-off and landing: most safety issues happen during those phases of flight, and getting out of the aircraft quickly is very important. It's important that everyone has some situational awareness should something happen.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> important that everyone has some situational awareness should something happen I’m reading a book with noise-cancelling headphones on or asleep during landing and take-off. Most people, particularly frequent flyers, are similarly distracted.
- generj 4y agoMany countries and do not allow passengers to wear headphones during take off or landing for this reason. I was quite shocked at it when an Air Canada flight attendant asked me to remove mine. I now always follow this practice, it’s a reasonable safety precaution.
- nicbou 4y ago> It's important that everyone has some situational awareness I can assure you that this won't be the case.
- Eleison23 4y ago[dead]
- danielodievich 4y agoI've been experiencing full connectivity on every Alaska flight for last year. My phone has T-mobile plan that allows direct connections. There is traffic shaping but it's easily bypassed by the VPN and voila, everything is available, youtube, telegram, whatever. It's not that amazingly fast but works. I bet I could do a voice call if I wanted to. But I won't do it because it's not polite to neither my neighbors nor person I'd call.
- masterof0 4y agoCan you share which VPN you use?
- danielodievich 4y agoI use ExpressVPN these days. So, alaskawifi->web auth->T-mobile pass redeem with my phone number where I have their top service->ExpressVPN to LA servers->Full internet unblocked
- masterof0 4y agoYou pay for the T-mobile pass tho? right? or you just get to the page, turn own the vpn , and refresh the page? Thanks for your answer btw.
- danielodievich 4y agoOf course. T-mobile pass is part of whatever plan I have with t-mobile, do yeah, indirectly I am paying for it.
- rjh29 4y agoI always enjoyed spacing out for 12-14 hours (long haul) with no social media, no pointless Reddit browsing and no need to contact anyone at work. Guess that's gone now.
- dudul 4y agoWhy don't you just do it even if you're not flying if you enjoy it? Or was it sarcasm without the /s?
- rjh29 4y agoI lack the self-control!
- xboxnolifes 4y agoAirplane mode has only been required for takeoff and landing for many years now.
- rjh29 4y agoI fly long-haul so there is literally no internet for the entire flight (although satellite wifi is now available, it is slow). Maybe it's different within Europe/US.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoTrue, but irrelevant. That has nothing to do with new regulation not requiring airplane mode.
- TheHappyOddish 4y agoThis may be the case wherever you live, but in my country and on the many international flights I've taken, this is untrue.
- tjohns 4y agoI find it interesting how most of the comments focus around maintaining quiet on the aircraft, and very little about the technical details behind this rule (interference with communications radio, interference with ground-based navigation signals, and impact on the cellular network itself). At least in the US, there's two different rules relevant to in-flight cell phone use: - 14 CFR 91.21 [1] - FAA rule prohibiting use of any electronics during air-carrier/instrument flight which the aircraft operator hasn't approved, in order to prevent interference with the avionics. - 47 CFR 22.925 [2] - FCC rule prohibiting airborne use of cellular telephones specifically, in order to prevent phones from talking to too many towers at once and stressing the cellular network. (As altitude increases the radio horizon increases, so at altitude your phone can "see" significantly more towers. The cellular network is built on the principle that a phone can only see a small handful of towers at a time, enabling frequency reuse.) This rule technically only applies in the "Cellular Radiotelephone Service" band, which is one of several different bands a cellphone can use, and it's one of the older ones — but you have no idea which band your cellphone is using at any given time. The FCC has talked about updating 47 CFR 22.925 and/or harmonizing the rules between cellular bands, but who knows if they'll ever get around to it. [3] FWIW, as a private pilot, I have first-hand experience with interference when somebody forgot to switch their cell phone off. It was difficult to hear ATC over the "click-click-BUZZ" of GSM interference through the headset. Granted, this was a small airplane, so passengers were much closer to the avionics... but it's not just a hypothetical. Cell phones tend not to work very well (if at all) above about 5,000 feet anyway, since cell tower antennas are directional and pointed towards the ground. [1]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-91/subpart-A/section-91.21 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F... [2]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-22/subpart-H/section-22.925 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B... [3]: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-04-288A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-04-288A1.pdf
- vlovich123 4y agoAFAIK 3G and newer don’t have this problem. 3G is more than 14 years old at this point and 2G is largely being phased out in the next few years.
- secondcoming 4y agoI don’t see how this can work. The aircraft speeds would make cell handovers occur every few seconds. Unless they’re talking about the aircraft itself providing the 5G network and that uses a probably-prohibitively expensive airline data plan. I doubt Flight Mode would disappear from phones, it’s useful for situations where you want to conserve battery like camping.
- tinus_hn 4y agoSatellite connectivity is no longer expensive, so why would you make it prohibitively expensive when you can also offer a $10 in-flight internet option many passengers will use?
- Nextgrid 4y ago> why would you make it prohibitively expensive Because you are a telco and exploiting your captive market is your business model. The same reason why an out-of-plan international call can cost dollars per minute unless you happen to have the specific, convoluted combination of plans/add-ons/bolt-ons in which case it magically becomes free. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to silently rip people off for several bucks because their phone accidentally connected to the in-flight cell and dared to transmit a few kilobytes of data?
- 1123581321 4y agoEven from your perspective, telcos would have a utilitarian need to price attractively, in order to change both consumer and business expectations to be connected and to persuade them to give up downloading content and work in advance of the flight.
- Nextgrid 4y agoThat doesn’t seem to be happening though - there was plenty of opportunity for this in the EU but it took legislation effectively mandating roaming to be free for it to become affordable - until then carriers were happily swindling their customers.
- surfsvammel 4y agoI’ve always thought having hundreds, or thousands, of people zipping around at those speeds would be extremely demanding on the network? Lots of handovers between cells? What happened to that problem? Or was that never a real problem to begin with?
- Havoc 4y agoThe connection is just to a local on plane “Tower” which has dedicated backhaul via sat
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y agoI guess that's one way to help chase people out of planes: add an annoyance from other public transport.
- Havoc 4y agoData sure, but calls (and voip) please no
- petodo 4y agoIt's same thing, data is calls and million other things, people should do whatever they want with their data. Some voice call ban is very low on list of my priorities what should rather be banned in flight - reclining seats and screaming babies would sure beat voice calls.
- BenFranklin100 4y agoI can’t imagine being stuck next to a babbling 15 year old girl literally 1.5 ft from my ear for six hours. And no, noise cancelling headphones are not good enough to drown out conversation at this close a distance. And plenty of people get upgraded to first on parents miles such that first class carriage is no guarantee. Hopefully the market will sort this out and offer ‘quiet flights’ or fare classes.
- josephcsible 4y agoWhy would talking on the phone during a flight have to be handled any differently than listening to music or talking to a seatmate are?
- BenFranklin100 4y agoTalking to a seat mate stranger for several hours is far less common and the persons doing so are usually not literally in next seat inches from ones ear. I’ve also noticed people on phones tend to talk louder. Listening to music on a plane is nearly universally done through headphones.
- josephcsible 4y agoI don't necessarily mean a stranger. I mean a group of people who know each other and are flying together. As for headphones, there's no reason they couldn't be used for the listening half of the call.
- lozenge 4y agoOn one level it doesn't matter why we find it more annoying to overhear a phone call - we just do. On another, psychology studies found "When trying to concentrate on a test, students found that overhearing someone talking on the phone was more intrusive than a two-sided conversation."
- BenFranklin100 4y agoJust wanted to add that middle-aged business men on corporate conference calls are among the worst offenders, as anyone who frequently takes the Acela can attest.
- porjo 4y agoWhile filling my car's fuel tank recently I noticed a sign saying mobile phone use was ok, just not while filling the tank. Seems reasonable. I remember the days when use of a cell phone anywhere near the bowser was strictly verboten! (Australia)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- iamthejuan 4y agoI just use airplane mode to save battery power.
- lathiat 4y agoI can see this leading to AeroMobile cleaning up. They have microcells on many international flights that charge you crazy roaming rates particularly for data. Your phone connects and uses it automatically. Right now mostly only intentionally as people are fairly used to actually turning airplane mode on. My carrier Telstra charges $3/MB still now for AeroMobile. Madness. I wonder if anyone has a non stupid rate with them? It’s also 75c/SMS and $5/minute for calls. https://www.aeromobile.net/ https://www.aeromobile.net/
- PedroBatista 4y agoI think this is a tragedy, not from a safety perspective but from a social one. Imagine that percentage of people loudly yapping on the phone no matter the situation inside a metal tube filled with another annoyed people..