I was on a flight from Munich to Chicago yesterday and they had wireless Internet access on the plane! It wasn't supposed to be available to the public yet, but two official test persons were supposed to be on the plane...and the flight attendant thought that my friend and I were those guys because we both had our laptops out. So I tried it out and it worked. Wanted to post here, but after some time, the ground staff got notice that the official testers were not on the plane, and shut it off! I posted on Flyertalk about it, in the LH forum. I figure it would have been the first time someone would have accessed the Clutch BBS from a plane! Will try again on my return flight (on the 21st), should be the same plane.
I had flown to Dubai on Swiss Airlines just a few back. My screen had an option for "online", but it wasn't in service yet.
dadakota. I wonder how much those things really do interfere. Because if they did much you'd think they wouldn't even let you bring that type stuff on the plane. phones etc if it could mess things up. I'm sure quite a few people probably just put their phones on vibrate and leave them on
I think the keyword is CAN. There are probably many things out there that interfere, but cutting off electronic equipment helps reduce the problem. I don't think banning such intruments would really make a difference ... considering "electronic terrorists" could stand outside the complex and shoot signals at the plane from outside the airport grounds.
Cool stuff SJC. I went over to flyertalk and read your thread. On a somewhat related note, I was flying to Houston from San Francisco about a year ago and at 30,000 feet I noticed that my mobile phone got reception whenever we flew over cities. I was able to read a text message, which I thought was pretty cool.
Guess what. I've had a portable tape player on during the entire landing process before. And the plane didn't crash. Surprise, surprise. Ever listened to the radio from up in the air? (not that you're really supposed to... I think you're just supposed to play your CDs) You can get all kinds of stations.
Yeah, they had a Verizon service on Continental yesterday. My seatmate was surfing away at some financial digs. I think he had every gadget made by man. Blackberry, compact Vaio, treo, some mp3 thingy... geez. Maybe he likes getting patted down.
No doubt these should clear everything up. http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/cellular/operations/aircraft.html http://www.faa.gov/avr/afs/acs/ac91211a.pdf ... no doubt whatsoever
i heard the real reason they don't want you to use your cell phones on planes is cuz you're going so fast that the cell towers aren't able to record your using them or something crazy like that. so the mobile companies can't charge you accurately. sounds silly but who knows.
That sounds highly unlikely, but then again who knows... I always see people using their electronic devices on planes. It pisses me off because, A.I am scurred of flight, and the fact that it can crash whenever and B. I am always the one that is patted down for devices, even though it turns out to be a piece of gum with aluminum foil. One of these days, I will just stand up and tell them off,but that day will probably be the last time they let me fly in commercial airplanes.
I am on my flight back and hereby (I think) officially the first person to post to this world-famous BBS from a plane .
Pretty cool, SJC. I'm flying on Tuesday and I wish they had it available. Then again, they're probably going to charge an arm and a leg once it's out. I'd shell out five bucks for a flight, but five bucks an hour or fifty bucks a month. Forget that.
Im on mars and im posting on this website. first ever im thinking. Now me and Sam Cassel are going to play a pick up game. Have a good night everyone.
Det the Ret joined chat today from an airplane. DET said it cost him $29 for wireless internet for the whole flight(NY to Germany). Man, this sounds cool. I hope my airlines (KLM) picks this up soon. It would be sweet to have it when I fly from Houston to Dhahran.
