[HN Gopher] No more airplane mode? EU to allow calls on flights
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No more airplane mode? EU to allow calls on flights
Author : ohjeez
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-12-29 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| ugh, 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)
| gardenfelder wrote:
| My 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.
| rjh29 wrote:
| The latest headsets are quite adequate at cancelling out
| voices, especially if you are playing music (or just white
| noise).
| williamscales wrote:
| I like to use noise cancelling headphones over earplugs. It
| seems to work fairly well for me.
| ant6n wrote:
| I use both at the same time.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I'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.
| bagels wrote:
| We 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.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| What other transport modes exist that don't share this problem?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| The "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 wrote:
| In 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.
| maest wrote:
| This does not somehow make it okay to introduce more
| suffering for this particular mode of transportaion.
| [deleted]
| chronsk830 wrote:
| [dead]
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| > 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%.
| kmlx wrote:
| we need to adopt more of the politeness of the japanese in
| this regard.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I travel some 600 km one-way to the HQ per train every month.
|
| The correct answer is to not book second class tickets, ever,
| always book "first class quiet zone", and inform offending
| co-travellers about societally unacceptable behaviour,
| friendly at first, then increasingly passive-aggressive.
| There are always some people who are incorrigible ... but
| Bose N700 noise cancelling headphones also help.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I assumed the poster was talking about metro-area trains.
| I've never had an issue on inter-city trains.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| That'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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Seems to me that anyone under age 25-ish has headphones
| permanently grafted to their ears. I exaggerate a bit but
| like young people rarely forget their phones because they
| notice within a few minutes that they don't have it, people
| are increasingly using headphones so much that they will
| not need to remember them.
|
| My kids were constantly losing wallets, money, credit
| cards, keys, drivers licenses, etc. but none of them ever
| lost a phone. I expect headphones will go the same way
| soon.
|
| For older folks, yeah. I often leave the house without my
| phone, because I go for hours at a time not using it.
| friendlyHornet wrote:
| I also suspect that the flight crew more actively enforcing
| rules than on a bus/train helps a lot.
| Mattasher wrote:
| I 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 $2.50 to be on the subway, or jump the turnstile
| altogether.
| end_of_line wrote:
| 500$ is a quite average price for the country I live in.
| Of course I don't mean cheap airlines, only the national
| ones.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| I still can find 10$ Ryanair tickets...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I have been waiting far too long for the subvocalization
| devices in SF (science/speculative fiction) to exist and become
| widespread. With current advances in AI/ML voice recognition I
| feel like we are about ready to try it, but I haven't seen any
| attempts yet.
|
| Anyone know if there is a project or startup working on this?
| rjh29 wrote:
| I 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.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Now 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.
| seppel wrote:
| > Being able to temporarily "unplug the cable" from a wireless
| device is a valuable feature, even if it's no longer required
| by regulation.
|
| But airplane mode means that wifi is still enabled/possible for
| quite some time.
| jefftk wrote:
| On every phone I've used "airplane mode" turns off all
| wireless functionality, and then you can optionally turn Wi-
| Fi back on while remaining in airplane mode. Are there
| devices that don't work this way?
| 33955985 wrote:
| iPhones since about 2015
| btown wrote:
| Why trust a button when you can just carry one of these around?
| https://www.teeltech.com/shop/faraday-bags/mission-darkness-...
|
| /s
| bitwize wrote:
| I use airplane mode to cycle the radio. Sometimes the firmware
| gets wedged and cycling it (by turning airplane mode on and
| then off) forces it to reset and reacquire a signal, which
| leads to better connectivity.
| em-bee wrote:
| i used it to get data to reconnect and potentially give me a
| new ip address. that's needed because i am in a country where
| some ip addresses are apparently being abused and as a result
| get blocked by some services.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Afwall+ is your friend
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I hate to break it to you, but this is a perfectly normal thing
| in Asia. You pay "roaming" rates for calls on board, so it
| naturally keeps calls short due to the higher per-minute cost.
|
| It's been around for over a decade, and it isn't particularly
| annoying.
|
| In fact, planes have had seatback phones since the '90s (you
| swiped your credit card to use it) and that also worked quite
| well.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| It's perfectly normal for wireless devices to not have an off
| switch for wireless connections?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I hope people vote with their wallets then, but realistically
| speaking people just buy whatever Apple throws out :(
| shortcake27 wrote:
| Very high chance of Apple removing it. Heck, AirPods Max
| have no power button. Someone at Apple is losing sleep over
| the fact people have control over the radios in their
| phone.
| jtvjan wrote:
| Certainly. They've already changed it such that "turning
| off" Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from the Control Centre doesn't
| actually turn off the radios, it simply disconnects any
| devices, or disconnects from any networks the device is
| currently connected to. You have to turn on Aeroplane
| Mode or go to the Settings app to actually turn them off.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| I 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I use it at night when I want to sleep without
| interuptions. I guess you can always just turn the phone
| off entirely. Assuming that doesn't become impossible
| also.
| crooked-v wrote:
| If we're talking Apple devices, Focus mode is explicitly
| defined for that case, and allows fine-grained settings
| for specific sources to allow through, so you can still
| get, e.g. high-priority midnight calls from the
| family/lawyer/local comic book shop.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| People call you at night?!
| em-bee wrote:
| i have friends on different timezones, and they talk in
| groups that are important to me, so i don't want to
| silence these groups. it's far easier to silence the
| whole phone for the night. airplane mode is an easy way
| to achieve that.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| It's a helpful low-power mode, especially when traveling
| in areas where you no there's no signal.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| Oh right, I forgot as I don't travel too much and almost
| whole Poland is reasonably well covered.
| [deleted]
| throw0101c wrote:
| At 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 wrote:
| > _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.
| nicbou wrote:
| > It's important that everyone has some situational awareness
|
| I can assure you that this won't be the case.
| tjohns wrote:
| I 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...
|
| [2]:
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
|
| [3]: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-04-288A1.pdf
| seppel wrote:
| I'm always amazed that the following things are true at the
| same time:
|
| a) Cell phones not in airplane mode are supposedly a safety
| concern for airplanes.
|
| b) Tap water I bring from home is a supposedly a safety concern
| for airplanes.
|
| c) I'm asked to turn my cell phone off or into airplace mode
| during take off but nobody really cares.
|
| d) I'm strip searched for tap water before entering the gate.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| AFAIK 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.
| tjohns wrote:
| The interference I experienced was just a couple years ago,
| from an LTE handset. It had fallen back to 2G mode due to the
| weak signal at altitude.
|
| As I understand it (and someone more versed in cellular
| backends can correct me), the reason why 2G GSM interference
| was so noticeable was because the TDMA-based radio would
| switch on and off at an frequency within the audible range,
| and once inductively coupled with a nearby audio cable would
| be strong enough to play sound through speakers.
|
| That doesn't mean newer cellular radios don't interfere. They
| can, just not audibly. Newer CDMA-style radio modes (used on
| LTE/5G) aren't switching on and off like the TDMA ones did,
| but they're still emitting the same amount of power.
|
| In particular, I'd be most worried about the aircraft's
| navigation radio. The technology used for ILS/VOR navigation
| is technologically simple, and easy to interfere with. A car
| driving past the wrong area of the airport can disrupt the
| signal. (There's "ILS Critical Areas" on airport taxiways
| that are marked off for this very reason, and ground
| controllers will prevent aircraft or vehicles from entering
| those areas when there's an aircraft on an ILS approach.)
| secondcoming wrote:
| I 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.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Lufthansa already does this with LTE.
| https://spacenews.com/lufthansa-deutsche-telekom-join-inmars...
|
| It's hardly impossible. Mobile data works off line of sight.
| The cells are much larger for radios pointed at the sky.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Satellite 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?
| danielodievich wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Can you share which VPN you use?
| danielodievich wrote:
| I 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
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