G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Brian Case wrote:

Actually it could work very well, and I have seen this proposal from
several different sources. The Idea is to install a low power cell
phone tower into the airliner.


Well, it would work well, but not if they actually used the cellular frequencies
(AMPS). If they installed a PCS processor in the plane, modern PCS phones would
communicate with it and not fall back on the AMPS frequencies.

It would be a real can of worms. If everybody had a GSM phone in the
US it might be doable. But every carrier these days tends to market
a multimode phone that bounces between CDMA, old style TDMA, analog AMPS,
GSM, and a couple of proprietary schemes like iDEN.

It's going to have to be a "only [insert carrier here]" phones work onboard
United's flights.