Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
Aren't many cellphones capable of becoming hotspots, thus becoming wifi delivery systems?
|
Sure, but when you're in the air with no cell access that's not very useful. And those hotspots are generally low-powered, generating maybe a 10' radius around the device. This is where reading comprehension comes into play. The issue is very clearly around what happens when an in-flight wifi system is misconfigured to be too powerful. That wifi system needs to cover the whole plane. A personal hotspot needs to cover a handful of seats. If whole-plane wifi configured normally is not enough to cause a problem, personal hotspots will not be either.
And to head off the next question, "But what if the user hax0rs his phone hotspot to be super powerful?" The answer is very clearly, "Every phone has to pass FCC inspections for emissions, and are restricted on the amount of power that can be used to transmit radio signals. This is hardware-level stuff, so unless you want to punish everybody for the 1-in-a-million hacker who actually physically modifies his phone to provide a stronger hot spot wifi signal, despite the fact that the systems in question recovered well within the required amount of time, there's nothing more to worry about here."