 |
House Committee decides to HANG UP on in-flight cell calls
It’s the classic battle fought against a modern backdrop: just as technology is finally saying that we could have wireless communication on airplanes, humanity is questioning whether we should have it; or at least certain kinds of it. The hemorrhaging airline industry is eager to allow (and charge for) passengers to use mobile phones on planes, but a bill that would ban such use is making progress through the US House.
Dubbed the “Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace” (HANGUP… get it?) Act of 2008, the bill was approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by a voice vote yesterday. The bill’s next stop is likely to be the House floor.
In a nutshell, the bill states that “An individual may not engage in voice communications using a mobile communications device in an aircraft during a flight in scheduled passenger interstate air transportation or scheduled passenger intrastate air transportation.”
Your Uncle Dave traveled on a US Airways flight Friday and discovered the delightful fact that they are not only now charging $7 for alcohol, $2 for sodas and juices, $1 for coffee, but also $2 for water! I was tempted to ask if I could get a cup and fill it myself from the tap in the bathroom until I realized that would cause others to ask, leading to my being tased for suggesting such a subversive idea.
While waiting for a connecting flight in the Phoenix airport, I overheard two flight attendants talking. They are now supposed to serve 1st class passengers only one drink an hour and that a third one decided to ignore the order as too stupid. One celeb (not named) who lives in Phoenix and regularly flies between there and LA normally has three triples (yes, three mini bottles per drink = nine shots!) per one hour flight and would riot if not allowed them.
Since US Airways already killed in-flight movies, this might be the only entertainment passengers get. Well, other than watching the beatings loud talking cell phone users get if the airlines kill the HANG UP bill.
“Fly the friendly skies” indeed! Good times, good times…
Thank you for flying US Scareways. That will be $59.00 for the oxygen charge….you DO want oxygen, don’t you???
Bitch, bitch, bitch. Its called the market. Don’t like it? Start your own airline.
“Since US Airways already killed in-flight movies, this might be the only entertainment passengers get. Well, other than watching the beatings loud talking cell phone users get if the airlines kill the HANG UP bill.”
What ever happened to spending time reading?
Mobile phone use should be banned when used in every mobile setting. That would included on planes, trains, cars, boats, skateboards, bicycles, walking, and running trying to get that multi-million dollar photo of a celebrity. Mobile phones are dangerous to others. This is well documented. An amendment should be added that also bans their use in non-mobile environments such as restaurants, standing in line, or anywhere there are other people who might be annoyed as they can be as deadly when someone gets pissed off. People should be be required to have permits to carry a mobile phone in any of the allowed safe settings. Congress should also start calling for the ring tones to be referred to in the bill as something more fitting like “tones of bureaucratic constituancy” or “chiming away free mobile expression bill of few rights left” before they drop the energy ball and go on vacation for 5 well paid weeks, with plenty of your mobile taxes to travel with, while the rest of the public suffers, digging out from under the biggest pile of rules and regulations to affect a free society since man left caves.
Oh man, that’s horrifying. I posted Dave’s comments on our internal travel site since the people in our company choose who they travel with – and our guys travel a lot.
I’ve often got on a plane with no cash (or the wrong currency) and if I had to buy water or coffee I would murder somebody.
BTW, I luckily get the fly Horizon a lot in the Pac Northwest and they still have free beer and wine from small local wineries and breweries. Great service too. All in all, a charming regional airline.
Great to see this. A group of people stuck in a metal tube at 35,000 feet for more than 5 minutes should be free from:
> Cellphone yappers
> Smoke
> Crying babies
> Salesman (including Christian recruiters)
> Fat people encroaching on your seat
> Backseat kickers
> Noisy games
> BO and related odors bought at the store
> Cross row conversations
> Elbow rest squatters
> People putting shit under your front seat
> People wanting to make small talk with you
> Pyramid scheme sales (incl Christian church)
Why not just choose another airline. There are only about fifty that fly LA to Vegas.
#8 True, that’s what you do.
However if I got on this plane and didn’t know “the rules” then I would be pretty pissed. Paying for water? You gotta be kidding me. In a hundred years I would never have thought that an airline would charge me for water.
someone with a carry on bag full of water bottles could make a fortune /not
Harumph!
Times sure have changed since I took a summer-school science class and flew to learn about aerodynamics.
They forced us to eat FREE salty peanuts and really fizzy FREE Coke in order to clear our head and ears from the effects of “air pockets”.
You’re telling me one has to PAY and it’s all VOLUNTARY now??
You DON’T want to drink from teh aircraft taps. That water is completely UNSAFE.
…an EPA test of 327 planes showed water on 15 percent of them testing positive for coliform bacteria.
#7 – Dallas
>>> Elbow rest squatters
Well, they only give you 4 elbow rests for 6 elbows (with a standard 3-seat configuration). Who has rights to the rests? Who has to jam their arm down between the rest and their body, causing it to go to sleep, and perhaps inducing deep-vein thrombosis as well.
Maybe they could sell rights to the elbow rest for a nominal feel also. Especially that poor center-seat schmuck; he’s not even guaranteed one rest!
#3 I can swallow “the market” argument, but water is a health issue. And you can’t bring your own on board.
#8: I was flying from Iowa to Vegas via Phoenix for work. My company uses a travel agency that ‘prefers’ US Airways and United. The LA-Phoenix story was overheard at the airport.
#16: Yes you can. You have to buy it after the security check, of course. You could also take empty bottles in and then fill them at the airport water fountains.
About using a cell phone on an airplane:
I read a while back that the original problem with cell phones on airplanes had nothing to do with sensitive electronics and everything to do with the cell phone towers.
By it’s very definition, cell phones work by passing your call from one “cell” (region of coverage for a particular tower) to another “cell”. Now when you are standing on the ground this works very well because it’s pretty easy to connect you to the right cell tower using your signal strength.
But when you are 35,000 feet in the air, your signal strength appears about the same to 100’s of cell towers on the ground! This royally screws up the entire cell network trying to route your call between towers when all the towers are getting your signal at the same strength at the same time! It’s the tower servicing your call that sends your call to the recipient, and if 10 towers are trying to service your call, who sends it on it’s way?
And how do you even begin to route between in-network and roaming?
So, even though your call will eventually make it’s way to it’s destination, it messed with the network by eating up bandwidth which could have been used for other calls.
AND – billing? Many call plans have (had?) different billing depending on whether it’s a local or long distance call. How does the cell provider deal with that?
I don’t think these problems have been solved yet here in the US.
I also believe the cell phone providers don’t believe it’s in their own best interest to spend millions of dollars solving these problems so you can make a call from an airplane.
I feel so sorry for us all… I remember flying PAN AM flight 1 in the 70’s I think it was their around the world flight. We were on a 707 I think the flight crew was the most senior in PAN AM. A steward, many flight attendants, great aircraft! No hassle boarding! great food/drinks.
I will never forget how wonderful it felt to fly.
Nevermore nevermore.. I will never fly again.
On some on the older airplanes you can still see in the bathrooms the slot for discarding your disposable razor blades.
Yes bill, I also lament the loss…
#20 – Ah_yea
Interesting story, but it sounds apocryphal. Every time I’m on an airplane, I get “no network” on my cell phone. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, all the same. “No Network”.
Maybe at 10,000ft, but 36,000? No fucking service.
Yes, Mustard, you’ve got a good point there.
I can imagine a cell phone working at 10,000 or even 15,000 but I also can’t imagine a cell phone working at 35,000 feet (~ 7 miles!)
Given that’s the case, then why are there so many people complaining about not being able to use their cell phones when they are out of range anyhow!
Much ado about nothing?
#24 – Ay_yea
>>why are there so many people complaining about
>>not being able to use their cell phones when
>>they are out of range anyhow!
Because there’s an incredible number of people who think that they are WAAAAY more important than they really are, and that being out of contact for a few short hours is going to mark the end of the world. They don’t understand the technology, but they think they should be connected 24/7, no matter what.
When in reality, the less they can yammer on their cell phones, the better off civilization will be.
(note to Flying Businessman from Wifey: I really don’t give a flying fuck when you land. Just show up at home and take your leftovers out of the oven. TIA)
Back a few years ago, I recall hearing that the reason why cellphones weren’t allowed on airplanes wasn’t because they wouldn’t work, it was because, at 600 mph, a cellphone would switch cells so fast, the billing system couldn’t keep up with it.
#25 Jägermeister, I couldn’t agree more!!
#26, read #20.
Oops, sorry, I meant Mustard! (I was writing to Jägermeister on another thread)
1) Why does a conversation on a cell phone bother us so much more than any other conversation? IT’S BECAUSE YOU DODOS CAN’T TALK AT A NORMAL DECIBEL LEVEL!!!!!!
2) I find air travel, even short flights, to be very dehydrating. So, charging for water is simply profiteering. (Sorry Dave: I’ve had TSA refuse to let me carry empty bottles through!) Solution: Chewing gum will relieve the feelings of thirst. And gum gives you the opportunity to leave a “thank you for charging me for water and coffee” gift.
Since I haven’t flown in years and have a (prepaid Tracfone) cell phone that I only use for emergencies, I’m very curious how those folks on Flight 93 during September 11th, 2001 made and received phone calls that we all heard so much about?
#29: What was the reason for not allowing empty bottles through? I realize each TSA agent seems to do what they want, reasonable or not, but an empty bottle?
Cell phones don’t work reliably above 2000-4000 feet. Texting is easier at higher altitudes depending on the frequency and cell phone type. In Europe and the Middle East airlines that are offering cell service will have picocells on their airplanes and have to apply for the appropriate licensing. GSM makes this somewhat easier.
The two cell phone calls on flight 93 are a bit of a mystery and 911 conspiracy theorists go nuts with it. I’ll leave it at that.
I must have taken my Nalgene bottle (empty) through US, Canadian, and European airport security at least a hundred times. Don’t know why you had problems Nimby. I’d suggest you relax going through security, have your documents and carry-ons organized, and don’t make a lot of jokes about why the TSA are idiots. In other words, don’t poke the bear.
I occasionally get a lecture from a fellow passenger about the dangers of PCB bottles – people have way too much times on their hands.
Uncle Dave wrote: “My company uses a travel agency that ‘prefers’ US Airways and United.”
It’s a good question to ask if you’re joining a company that requires a lot of travel is “Can I read your travel policies?”. If the company has restrictive travel policies like JCD’s then you may want to think twice or negotiate something.
If you’re going to be traveling even moderately, say 30-50 flights per year, you really need some flexibility.