"We Know in 2001 Cell Phones Worked Up To 50,000 Feet and..."

[CurveLight]

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles.

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

Are you ******* serious? Please tell me you posted that azz a joke.

 

[Gamolon]

Can you please tell me what page of the CR that statement is on? I did a search for "Renee" and "cell phone" and find no statement about Renee making the call from her cell phone.

Here's the link to the CR I used. Maybe you can find it http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf

It doesn't say cell phone.

At 9:12, Renee May called her mother,Nancy May, in Las Vegas. She said
her flight was being hijacked by six individuals who had moved them to the
rear of the plane. She asked her mother to alert American Airlines. Nancy May
and her husband promptly did so.

Regardless, the premise is stupid. It is possible to make cell phone calls from aboard flights...coverage might be bad and/or spotty but they are possible to an extent.

You say the premise is "stupid" but you have not presented any evidence to back up your claim cell calls were plausible.....especially at 30,000 feet. The op presents evidence it is not a reasonable assumption. What else you got?

Did you make up the statement that the CR said Renee made the call from her cell phone? Yes or no?

 

[JenyEliza]

Saliva kills circuit boards......

This is true.....

And water/saliva damage is NOT covered under replacement warranty coverage by ANY provider---ATT, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, MetroPCS, etc etc etc.

So, you suck on your phone, you're screwed!

Just say NO and put it away for the flight.

I saw a commercial for a water resistant cell phone yesterday. I forget the company though.

Mil Specs they called it.

That would mostly likely be Sprint Nextel or Boost (a wholly owned company of Sprint Nextel).

The handset you saw was probably manufactured by Motorola for Boost or Sprint Nextel to use on the iDen network.

They have several versions built to MilSpecs, that are available to contractors, builders, welders, tradesmen, mechanics, and other regular members of the public whose occupation or just plain harsh treatment of their device requires a really TOUGH phone that can withstand battlefield conditions.

Those phones are nearly indestructible. They're made that way purposefully. They're good phones. You can't kill 'em.

But there's a hitch: They're usually very expensive unless you sign a long-term contract (ie, 2 years).

 

[JenyEliza]

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles.

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

There are NO analog cell phone networks currently in operation. The last analog networks were taken down several years ago.

Just FYI.

 

[SFC Ollie]

During 1989 through 1991 the US Army fielded a new telecommunications system. It was called MSE or Mobile Subscriber Equipment. It was basically a Cellular telephone network.

I never used it to talk to anyone in a plane but the phones did work in helicopters. Up to 15 Kilometers in any direction. I would guess up is a direction.

Anyway my bet is that the civilian cell networks grew from much of the military technology.

Those phones should work from aircraft if there are towers available. Key word here being should.

 

[Ravi]

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles.

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

Are you ******* serious? Please tell me you posted that azz a joke.

No joke. Perhaps you should do a little research next time before you embarrass yourself...like you've done twice in this thread already.

 

[Ravi]

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles.

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

There are NO analog cell phone networks currently in operation. The last analog networks were taken down several years ago.

Just FYI.

Really? hahahahaha! You silly twit, they existed on 9/11.

 

[Ravi]

During 1989 through 1991 the US Army fielded a new telecommunications system. It was called MSE or Mobile Subscriber Equipment. It was basically a Cellular telephone network.

I never used it to talk to anyone in a plane but the phones did work in helicopters. Up to 15 Kilometers in any direction. I would guess up is a direction.

Anyway my bet is that the civilian cell networks grew from much of the military technology.

Those phones should work from aircraft if there are towers available. Key word here being should.

Black helicopters?

 

[JenyEliza]

What range do cell towers have? Anyone have any links?

Depends on who owns the tower, what type of technology it supports (ie, iDen, CDMA, GSM, WiMax, etc).

Generally speaking, you need to understand the basic way these towers work. They "ping" from one tower to another, so to speak. You place a call and it hits the nearest tower, when you reach that tower's end range, it automatically hands you off to the next closest tower, and you "ping" that tower, and so on and so forth as you travel (normally this is terrestrial travel, not air travel, at least until the technology became available to use cell phones from the air, which IIRC was not until well after 2001).

-------------------
WiMax towers cover an entire city, they transmit data traffic only and provide 4G access to the internet that is lightyears faster than cable, satellite or DSL. It can be used from a moving car with a mobile device and laptop, from a park with a laptop, from home, or just about any other place you can think of.

iDen would tend to have a fairly long reach with PTT (push to talk), ranging over most metropolitan areas of larger cities.

GSM has shorter range (a mile or maybe two per tower), but broad reach (in terms of being able to use your handset here and abroad).

CDMA would have the longest reach, but would still only be a few miles (3-5 miles per tower).

These are just estimates I recall off the top of my head. Could do some research, but I'm not a big conspiracy nut.

I just have a Telecom background and find it terribly difficult to believe that in *2001* cell phones were in use on *any* aircraft AND able to place and hold calls on the terresterial network without a repeater or other specialized equipment installed on the aircraft to facilitate handling the voice traffic.

As a Telecom specialist, as far as I am concerned, it was NOT possible in 2001.

Ya'll can take my word for it, or not. I don't care.

 

[JenyEliza]

During 1989 through 1991 the US Army fielded a new telecommunications system. It was called MSE or Mobile Subscriber Equipment. It was basically a Cellular telephone network.

I never used it to talk to anyone in a plane but the phones did work in helicopters. Up to 15 Kilometers in any direction. I would guess up is a direction.

Anyway my bet is that the civilian cell networks grew from much of the military technology.

Those phones should work from aircraft if there are towers available. Key word here being should.

While it is true that the military has collaborated with private sector Telcom firms on handset development and technology development, as far as I know the MSE is ONLY available to military personnel.

I am unaware of ANY commercial Telcom which provides cell phone access to private commercial customers on MSE.

The available commercial networks in the USA are: iDen, CDMA, GPRS and GSM.

MSE is NOT available to the general public.

 

[JenyEliza]

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

There are NO analog cell phone networks currently in operation. The last analog networks were taken down several years ago.

Just FYI.

Really? hahahahaha! You silly twit, they existed on 9/11.

I am aware of that you stupid dolt.

I was simply pointing out that they no longer exist for the chronically stupid in this thread.

Some of the stupidity I've seen here in this thread is bordering on comic book material.

MSE for civilians. ROFLMAOPIMP!

Oh. My. Gawd.

 

[SFC Ollie]

There are NO analog cell phone networks currently in operation. The last analog networks were taken down several years ago.

Just FYI.

Really? hahahahaha! You silly twit, they existed on 9/11.

I am aware of that you stupid dolt.

I was simply pointing out that they no longer exist for the chronically stupid in this thread.

Some of the stupidity I've seen here in this thread is bordering on comic book material.

MSE for civilians. ROFLMAOPIMP!

Oh. My. Gawd.

I didn't say that a civilian would have access to MSE, I said or meant to be understood as saying that civilian cell networks could have been designed after or used some of the military technology, Same as in many things we take for granted.

Like I wouldn't know that civilians cannot access military systems? Please.

 

[CurveLight]

During 1989 through 1991 the US Army fielded a new telecommunications system. It was called MSE or Mobile Subscriber Equipment. It was basically a Cellular telephone network.

I never used it to talk to anyone in a plane but the phones did work in helicopters. Up to 15 Kilometers in any direction. I would guess up is a direction.

Anyway my bet is that the civilian cell networks grew from much of the military technology.

Those phones should work from aircraft if there are towers available. Key word here being should.

Key phrase: piss poor extrapolations do not lead to explanations.

There have already been links posted explaining why cell phones don't work on aircraft and definitely not up to 50,000 feet as claimed by poopular mekanics.

 

[groupthink]

more conspiracy BS... just believe the official story and shut the hell up.

 

[CurveLight]

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

Are you ******* serious? Please tell me you posted that azz a joke.

No joke. Perhaps you should do a little research next time before you embarrass yourself...like you've done twice in this thread already.

If that's the best you can do then.....thanks for stopping by. The op link has much more verifiable information showing in flight calls at cruising altitude would have been nearly impossible.

 

[CurveLight]

more conspiracy BS... just believe the official story and shut the hell up.

Oh man. You're a genius! (follow the sheep follow the sheep)

 

[CurveLight]

Really? hahahahaha! You silly twit, they existed on 9/11.

I am aware of that you stupid dolt.

I was simply pointing out that they no longer exist for the chronically stupid in this thread.

Some of the stupidity I've seen here in this thread is bordering on comic book material.

MSE for civilians. ROFLMAOPIMP!

Oh. My. Gawd.

I didn't say that a civilian would have access to MSE, I said or meant to be understood as saying that civilian cell networks could have been designed after or used some of the military technology, Same as in many things we take for granted.

Like I wouldn't know that civilians cannot access military systems? Please.

Your guess work on this is a waste of time as we already know in flight cell calls were not feasible, especially at 30,000 feet.

 

[CurveLight]

The 9E CR says the call was made with her cell phone. I forget the schedule? Is this the week you guys don't care what the 9E CR says? Or is this a week where you say it is accurate?

Can you please tell me what page of the CR that statement is on? I did a search for "Renee" and "cell phone" and find no statement about Renee making the call from her cell phone.

Here's the link to the CR I used. Maybe you can find it http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf

You're absolutely correct about the final report as it does not definitively provide proof how the calls were made nor where they came from. I apologize for claiming the CR said May's calls came from a cell. I believe I had read that regarding one of the Hearings but it was not included in the final report.

 

[Fizz]

Some older phones, which have stronger transmitters and operate on analog networks, can be used at a maximum altitude of 10 miles, while phones on newer digital systems can work at altitudes of 5 to 6 miles. A typical airline cruising altitude would be 35,000 feet, or about 6.6 miles.

Communications - New Perspective on the Issue of Cell Phone Use in Planes - NYTimes.com

There are NO analog cell phone networks currently in operation. The last analog networks were taken down several years ago.

Just FYI.

in 2002 the FCC decided to abandon the analog cell phone network in 2008. cell companies were no longer required to provide an analog signal starting in february 2008.

 

[Fizz]

Are you ******* serious? Please tell me you posted that azz a joke.

No joke. Perhaps you should do a little research next time before you embarrass yourself...like you've done twice in this thread already.

If that's the best you can do then.....thanks for stopping by. The op link has much more verifiable information showing in flight calls at cruising altitude would have been nearly impossible.

and the point of all this is what, exactly?

are you claiming that Renee May never called her parents? Her parents never called american airlines on the numbers renee may gave them?

are the May's lying?