Why Can't You Use Phones On Planes?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
889 words · ~4 min read
0:00
please ensure your seat backs and tray tables are in the upright and locked
0:04
position and turn off any handheld electronic
0:08
devices wait a minute what I mean I
0:11
understand why I had to check my paintball gun but is my tiny little
0:16
iPhone really going to bring down a Boeing 787 does it really matter if I'm
0:22
watching the an excellent recent Techquickie episode about fax machines as
0:27
the plane rolls down the tarmac
0:30
well to answer this question we need a little bit of History the United States
0:35
Federal Communication Commission or FCC
0:38
you know the same group of folks at the center of every debate over net
0:42
neutrality banned phone calls on planes
0:45
way back in 1991 when the privileged few that had
0:49
cell phones were carrying around things that looked like
0:54
this this rule was passed over concerns
0:58
that the radio waves emitted from a cell phone could interfere with more
1:03
important radio Transmissions such as Communications between air traffic
1:07
control and Pilots so that your plane can avoid you know little obstacles like
1:13
thunderstorms mountains and other planes
1:16
later on as other types of devices like
1:20
portable audio and video players became more widespread there was further
1:24
concerned that even devices that didn't transmit data over the air could
1:29
interfere with critical airplane Electronics like Positioning Systems and
1:35
to be very clear this was more than the
1:38
type of idle paranoia that you'd find at a typical PTA meeting in fact one
1:44
passenger's handheld DVD player caused an instrument in a cockpit to indicate
1:50
the plane was pointed in the wrong direction in an incident back in
1:55
1999 with that said modern Aviation
1:58
Electronics or avionics resist interference far better
2:03
than they used to and on top of that there's never been any definitive
2:08
evidence linking portable consumer electronics to an actual crash so in
2:14
response to this reality the Federal Aviation Administration relaxed their
2:18
rules about exactly when passengers could use their Gadgets in 2013 and
2:24
since then US flights have been allowed Electronics use throughout the flight
2:30
even below 10,000 ft which was previously banned because takeoff and
2:35
Landing are the most dangerous segments of flight when lots of things need to
2:39
happen with Precision in a particular order for safe departure and arrival but
2:46
the new rule only allows the use of non-transmitting devices so while you
2:52
can use an iPad to watch a movie that you've saved to its local storage you
2:57
can forget about a voice call on a cellular network hence the famous
3:02
airplane mode that stops all transmissions to and from the
3:06
device but why I mean we're living in
3:10
the age of inflight Wi-Fi for crying out loud which you can learn more about here
3:15
and the FCC has even allocated specific
3:18
frequencies to Cellular Connections to reduce the risk of interference with
3:24
flight why are we still told not to make
3:27
a quick call while waiting on an overpriced cocktail from the flight
3:31
attendant well the answer may be as
3:34
simple as the powers that be being fine
3:37
with the rule as it is in April 2017 the
3:41
chairman of the FCC actually rejected a
3:44
proposal to allow cell phone calls on flights because he this is a quote
3:49
valued a moment of quiet at 30,000 ft
3:53
with the press release not saying a single word about actual safety and in
3:57
Europe passengers are allowed to use their cellular data it's just calls that
4:02
are banned to avoid annoying other passengers and I guess there are also
4:07
those who further speculate that this could be a case of government Regulators
4:13
cozying up to companies who want to charge people for inflight communication
4:18
Services we're not going to get too deep into how true that may or may not be but
4:24
now that I think about it with the way I get nickel and dimed by the airlines
4:28
these days it wouldn't surprise me that much if that were
4:32
true although with that said it wouldn't surprise me that much to see a credit
4:35
card reader on the lavatory door at some point so speaking of getting nickel and
4:40
dimed Synergy doesn't do that Synergy is a software download that solves the
4:45
problem of having two keyboards and two mice on your desk at the same time
4:49
forget that stuff just install Synergy on all your computers and share one
4:54
Mouse and one keyboard between two or more so you'll no longer confuse CH
5:00
which one goes with which they offer a basic and a pro option with a one-time
5:05
payment for Lifetime access features include things like clipboard sharing
5:09
between computers dragging and dropping files between computers the ability to
5:13
set up hotkeys and even the ability to share your peripherals between different
5:18
operating systems seriously you can have like a Windows a Mac and a Linux PC and
5:22
you just move your mouse across them it's like freaking magic so if you want
5:27
to try out Synergy and save some money check out the link in the video
5:31
description now so thanks for watching
5:34
guys dislike or like leave a comment with video suggestions check out our
5:38
other channels and don't forget to subscribe