It's fitting that a trio of electrical engineers has put forth the clearest argument against in-flight mobile usage to date. After all, it requires a Ph.D. to make sense of the decision-making process.
This much is clear, according to a March 2006 article in the monthly publication of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE) by Bill Strauss, M. Granger Morgan, Jay Apt, and Daniel Stancil, "Unsafe at Any Airspeed?" (www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar06/3069): "Our data and the NASA studies suggest to us that there is a clear and present danger: Cell phones can render GPS instruments useless for landings." Their research contains other troubling findings as well: At least one scofflaw per flight, on average, uses a cell phone in violation of regulations.
Contrary to popular belief, the Federal Aviation Admini-stration (FAA) — not the Federal Communications Commis-sion (FCC) — ultimately decides whether in-flight mobile phone calls are allowed. "Questions that pertain to air safety and air navigation are handled by the FAA, and you definitely want them handled by the FAA," says an FCC spokesperson.
Both federal agencies currently prohibit the use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices (PEDs), but for different reasons tied to their distinct missions: The FCC's ban stems from concerns about how in-flight use might negatively affect terrestrial mobile conversations; the FAA's ban relates to the possibility that the radiation PEDs emit could interfere with crucial cockpit instruments.
The FCC sparked an uproar in late 2004 when it announced that it would consider lifting its ban. That backlash was misinformed — the FAA has the final say — and it obscured the FCC's decision to reopen the bidding process for air-to-ground (ATG) phones. The back-of-seat Verizon Airfones, the only current provider due to telecommunications consolidation and outdated policies, are expensive for non-Verizon customers and lack high-speed Internet connectivity. This should change this year, as the FCC plans to auction additional licenses (ones that allow laptop connections) for ATG, which relies on satellite technology and does not pose the same risks as PED emissions.
In the meantime, the FAA and its partner, the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA, www.rtca.org) — and the RTCA's PED committee — continue to evaluate the risks of in-flight PED usage and ways to mitigate those risks.
The public's awareness of PED risks seems a bit dim: About 30 percent of respondents to a recent CNNMoney.com poll indicated that the FCC should relax its ban on in-flight cell phone calls. Here's hoping that the 70 percent of respondents who responded "never" blow the whistles on violators, direct their neighbors to a (hopefully) more affordable ATG option, and spread the word that the FAA has sound reasons for its rules.
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