Why no "situational awareness" (collision avoidance) apps for cell phones?

On Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 2:35:35 AM UTC-4, Chris Wedgwood wrote:
^ In most jurisdictions its illegal to use cellphones when airborne.

- and yet many glider pilots use IGCdroid. I am still not sure whether that is technically legal. In the USA, in my case.

I believe the FCC rule (in the US) is to NOT make/receive calls from a cellphone in the air. Major reason is potential swamping of multiple cell towers from a single phone, thus maybe blocking other calls.
Data through the same system uses quite a bit less bandwidth.

At least, that is my understanding.

On Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 4:04:35 PM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
I believe the FCC rule (in the US) is to NOT make/receive calls from a cellphone in the air. Major reason is potential swamping of multiple cell towers from a single phone, thus maybe blocking other calls.
Data through the same system uses quite a bit less bandwidth.

At least, that is my understanding.

Are you saying voice calls not OK, data OK from the air? How about text messages (also low bandwidth)? Of course, SOME data uses ARE high bandwidth (watch Netflix?), but I agree that the packets sent out by IGCdroid are low-bandwidth. The FCC rule may not differentiate those though.

On Friday, May 4, 2018 at 6:04:35 AM UTC+10, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
I believe the FCC rule (in the US) is to NOT make/receive calls from a cellphone in the air. Major reason is potential swamping of multiple cell towers from a single phone, thus maybe blocking other calls.
Data through the same system uses quite a bit less bandwidth.

At least, that is my understanding.

I know most of the conversation is US centric, but for context, here is a statement from the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (Cell phone industry body): http://www.amta.org.au/pages/Mobile.Phones.and.Aircraft
http://www.amta.org.au/files/AMTA-Po...rence-2013.pdf

The summary is in Australia there is no government regulation on cell phone use and it is up to the pilot/carriers to decide what policy they want to set. The cell phone companies industry body seems to have no concerns about issues with the cell phone system (GSM). The referenced PDF quotes research done in countries outside the US showing that there is no substantiated proof that phonescan interfere with aircraft systems.