
FCC chairman seeks to keep voice call ban in place on airplanes - gnicholas
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/04/10/voice-call-ban-planes-cellular-service-airlines-federal-communications-commission/100291108/
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tradersam
> Frank Wake of Anchorage said allowing calls would be “cruel and unusual
> torture for those of us trapped.”

> 96% favoring the ban, 2% favoring the ban with exceptions for emergencies
> and 2% saying airlines should set their own policies.

People don't like other people.

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revelation
That is a funny ratio, given far more people casually whip out their phone in
public transport and start yapping away.

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tradersam
Flights seem like a bigger deal than hoping on a bus/train. There is a much
higher barrier to entry, more regulation, and people take it pretty serious.
You don't get a pat down on the bus.

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InitialLastName
> You don't get a pat down on the bus.

Nobody's worried that you'll destroy valuable property or kill people by
driving a bus into it/them. They probably should be.

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shadowfiend
Mind-bending how the same person can say that personal data privacy should be
the domain of the market, but cell phone usage on airplanes should be
disallowed based on a preference for quiet on an airplane.

I can respect the position that regulation is bad, and careful application of
new regulations. I won't necessarily agree with it, but I can respect it as
simply coming from different fundamental values. But this is such blatant
hypocrisy that I'm having trouble suppressing rage heh.

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moonka
Yea, this is pretty mind boggling.

> Pai told USA TODAY in a statement. “Taking it off the table permanently will
> be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment
> of quiet at 30,000 feet.”

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x1798DE
So the primary reason for this ban is nothign to do witih communication or
interference, it's just some notion that if cell phones were allowed on
flights it would be annoying to the people around you? This is why the
judiciary should abandon the "rational basis" approach to evaluating
legislation (i.e. you don't have to actually justify your laws/rules) in favor
of something where the government has to make the case that something should
be banned for a specific reason.

Regulating the social norms of airline behavior is _not_ the job of the FCC,
and it astonishes me that anyone thinks otherwise just because the FCC happens
to have some power over one lever to control this.

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jessaustin
IANAL: I can see how, from a legal perspective, FCC could disallow cell towers
from connecting to obviously-flying devices. I could see them forcing device
manufacturers to switch off in flight. I _don 't_ see how FCC can legally
insert itself into the commercial environment of air travel in the way it has
inserted itself here. FAA could, but this is not FCC's bailiwick. This is like
them deciding that we can't use mobile phones in the waiting room at the
dentist's office. If anyone gets to make that stupid regulation, it should be
the agency that regulates dentistry.

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exabrial
It's not that it's "disallowed", it's the technology isn't designed to do it.
Cell towers aren't aimed at the sky for a myriad of reasons (they use sector
antennas), and the protocols are designed at much slower velocities than an
airplane. An airplane also has line-of-sight to hundreds of cell towers, which
would make cell selection very difficult, and the networks would quickly run
out of spectrum since one handset signal would reach hundreds of towers rather
than the handful they do on the ground.

Theoretically, the data services offered by planes could host a picocell
tower. But the data service used by airplanes is much different than cell
networks. Sattelite based services use antennas on top of the plane and have
to have specialized tracking antennas. ATG based systems use a network of land
based stations and special antennas pointed above the horizon. ATG uses a
modified EVDO protocol (yep, that old cell protocol) to work at higher base
station velocities.

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funkymike
The arguments against allowing voice calls are not based on the technology but
the idea of not wanting to listen to other people's conversations.

> Pai told USA TODAY in a statement. “Taking it off the table permanently will
> be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment
> of quiet at 30,000 feet.”

> But Pai's predecessor as FCC chairman, Thomas Wheeler, argued that the ban
> had become obsolete because many airliners basically carry their own
> cellphone towers for in-flight entertainment.

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dragonwriter
I think airlines should have policies disallowing it, but I don't see how the
in-cabin ambience of an airplane is even remotely what the FCC exists to
regulate.

I would hate to be in an airplane with people making voice calls, but I don't
think it's even remotely the FCC's job (and I'm somewhat dubious it's even
properly the government's job) to do it, and, while I'm neither, I'm closer to
a socialist than a _laissez-faire_ supporter of unregulated capitalism.

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flareback
Why can't we just let the airlines decide for themselves if they want to allow
voice calls on their flights.

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aanm1988
This does not seem like something that should be regulated. The airline should
be able to say yes or no.

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jackmott
I thought Pai was against regulation.

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flareback
Only regulation he disagrees with.

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ouid
I don't understand. How does this benefit Verizon?

