Not the sounds of silence
You might not want to hear this but mobile phones are inching towards acceptance in an area where they have long been banned: commercial airline flights.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a meeting this month it will discus possible revisions to rules prohibiting cell phones on commercial flights.
Cell phone use has long been banned because of concerns of its impact on an aircraft’s navigation.
New technology may make the use of cell phones less intrusive, however.
“There is a (better) safety factor because we are transmitting at such low power to a cell site right in the airplane,” Irwin Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, told CNN.com.
Not everyone is pleased with the notion. Les Glass in an e-mail to CNN/Money wrote:
“Can you imaging being in the middle seat between two business people making phone calls for three hours? What are the airlines and the FCC thinking?”
Don’t expect a quick decision, however. An FCC spokesperson said the review period will last well into next year.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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