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Originally Posted by john_cramer
As any beginner pilot knows, VHF and UHF are line of sight. From an elevation of 1000 feet you can see many, many towers. This is the reason-- from FL 350 cruise you could lock up many towers on the same frequency.
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Way it was explained to me (when I was working at a wireless phone company) was that all the towers that can "see" the phone arbitrate to decide who has the best signal, and when to hand off.
Not such a big deal when you're driving up the freeway @ 55 MPH and two or maybe three towers are involved, but significant when you can "see" a 100 towers or more, and are moving @ 600 knots to boot, and then multiply that by 50+ phones on the aircraft...
If there's effectively a tower on the aircraft, it's a slam dunk for the phone, it only talks to that...
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The REAL reason is safety related but not in the way you might think. Standards of etiquette being what they are, the cellphone ban avoids the hundreds of potential episodes of choking the living beejaysus out of your fellow passenger who jabbers on a cellphone ALL THE WAY FROM NEW YORK TO LOS ANGELES
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Heck yes. It's bad enough that no airline provides a "no children" area, much less service. Yet.
I love children, but I couldn't eat a whole one...