AOPA supports cell phones in GA aircraft

xrayvizhen wrote:
My understanding, from a source within the I.T. department of
Cingular,
is that this issue has nothing to do with safety in the cockpit or
interference with aircraft navigation equipment. It has to do with
the
fact that when at altitiude, a cell phone will be accessing many more
cells at one time than when on the ground which somehow prevents your
cell phone carrier from accurately billing you. This information came
to me about a year ago. If AOPA has updated information and is saying
it's OK with the carriers, then hopefully this will happen sooner
rather than later


That was true with the old analog sites. Their antennas seemed to
point up as well as down. I used to be able to make an analog call at
cruise altitude without a problem. Of course I probably lit up every
cell to the horizon (note: only did it a few times in sparsely poplated
areas). When the PCS network was built, it seemed that they caught on
to this and angled the antennas towards the ground in most places. So
says and acquaintence who works as a design engineer at Sprint. With
the PCS phone, I've never been able to get a signal much above pattern
altitude.

I have to agree with the poster that said AOPA's quest was pointless.
Analog service is disappearing and you can't use the newer services in
the air anyway. I would think that they'd have more pressing matters
on their plate than this.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)