Planes & Cell phones

"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
Recentingly, in another thread, cell phones and planes came up. I
thought others might be interested in these links.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1568024,00.asp
http://wirelesscabin.com/
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...art.html?pg=12

The general theory on modern cell phones in flight, goes like this:
The FCC also has a ban because when you're in flight, you're always at
least 6-8 miles away from the nearest cell tower. You end up communicating
with too many towers and bogging down the network. One or two such
calls...

Here's a needed clarification. Are there still problems when the phone isn't
making a call, but just sitting there listening to the network? I know such
a phone is continuously acquiring the next tower down the road. Would it be
true that the problem with passive phones is the same as with active ones,
but to a lesser extent?

-- David Brooks