201–210 of 629 posts
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> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. This doesn’t track. What about trains?
US resident here. What is a train? Those things that move cows, oil, and cars across those rusty bits of metal? I don't think those are suitable for human transportation.
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Why do you think I think I'm special? I simply think we're all humans, with basic rights, such as being able to keep tabs on our personal property, within reason-- which, surely, a small, light, unobtrusive tracker that has no known problematic failure modes, and which contains a battery that is within the checked baggage limits comports with? I made no suggestion that I should be able to shirk the rules while everyo…
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This is absolutely not true – guidelines from e.g. FAA and IATA are extremely clear that devices are permitted in both checked and carry-on baggage. There are some restrictions around bare cells, e-cigarettes etc. but for the most part these devices are no problem.
what a joke, I guess that's one way to deal with their terrible luggage handling.. I've been now waiting since a flight on August 20th to receive my "lost" luggage from them. I guess policy like this is easier than fixing the actual issue. The only update I've gotten is this email two weeks ago, their hotline and website are completely useless. Via DeepL > Good day, > We apologize that you have not yet received your…
“ Lufthansa claims that the transmission function needs to be turned off during flight when in checked luggage, just as is required for cell phones, laptops, etc.” On my phone, turning on airplane mode seems to disable the cell and wifi radios (with wifi able to be toggled back on) but Bluetooth defaults to staying on.
It also sounds incredibly dumb when you think about how checked luggage gets scanned and searched. Isn't it typically after you've dropped it off with airline staff and have walked away towards a terminal gate? And when they find an airtag in checked luggage, how can they tell by looking at the airtag itself if "transmission function" has been turned off??? It seems to me they either have to throw away all airtags th…
I have no doubt that they'll do exactly this. They'll likely stick them into an RF-blocking pouch first, then destroy them all. You won't get it back, you won't get any compensation, and they'll point to their policies as to why.
Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. It's not any air safety issue. Rather, 300-500 cell phones all trying to contact the next cell tower, multiple times per minute, would wreak havoc on cell service. https://www.inverse.com/article/51015-cell-phone-use-on-airp... At one point, when both cell phones and laptops were new, there was perhaps a risk to the airplane's electronics. Mo…
I don’t think that’s true, or at least how you worded it is bad. Events of thousands of people don’t make you turn off your cell phone, so it’s not because of traffic to a tower. Instead, it’s interference caused by altitude and the pinging of towers. It’s actually an FCC regulation that requires it, so it’s not a courtesy as you say.
First of all, if you've ever been to an event with hundreds or thousands of people (such as a parade or a rally), you'll notice that even though you have "full bars", your service is degraded beyond usability, and you'll receive text messages hours late.
But in this case, the issue is that people's phones will be trying to connect to many different towers in short succession, as the plane travels.
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> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. This doesn’t track. What about trains?
You're supposed to put your phone on airplane mode in a train or subway too, but most people don't: https://pocketnow.com/airplane-mode/ The problem is significantly lessened for trains vs. planes though because you're traveling an order of magnitude slower and hence you switch cells an order of magnitude less frequently. Also many commuter rails run alongside major highways or boulevards, where the cell systems are…
https://www.transitchicago.com/cta-to-bring-4g-wireless-serv...
It was when it was introduced. In today's modern airliner there is not much risk but earlier equipment was not built to withstand this kind of interference. Sometimes you could even hear GSM buzzing through the audio of the pilots speaking, on the airband. It was also a certification issue.
Today it's not a technical issue anymore in the western world, and some airlines even permit the phones to be used while in cruise (they provide their own 3G/4G access point on board with satellite backhaul - at a huge markup of course!). Though WiFi is more popular. Airlines that don't still prohibit it for what I believe are more social reasons (and the issue with them swarming cell towers indeed)
It's a bit similar to the issue happening now with radio altimeters and 5G. Many airliners still have older radio altimeters that aren't built to deal with 5G interference (in this case from the ground though).
The amount of RF energy coming from a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon is absolutely minimal though, it's for this reason that they can run for months on a button cell. A cell phone can transmit 1-2 Watts of energy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think I think I'm special? I simply think we're all humans, with basic rights, such as being able to keep tabs on our personal property, within reason-- which, surely, a small, light, unobtrusive tracker that has no known problematic failure modes, and which contains a battery that is within the checked baggage limits comports with? I made no suggestion that I should be able to shirk the rules while everyo…
Quoted post unavailable.