Quote:
Originally Posted by tribble
Can happen to people who deal a bit with statistics  |
I once heard a statistician say that 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RWood
First, the signals are generally compressed to the horizon (like FM radio) to boost the effective radiated power (ERP) thus not expending it where there are no people. Second, the signal, even if broadcast upwards, doesn't travel that far. Finally, the switching between towers is bad enough at 65 mph, how can it handle 500 mph? Just my thoughts. I've been wrong before.
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RF signals travel near the speed of light in atmosphere, if I remember my physics classes correctly ... anyway, 65 mph or 500 mph isn't much compared to .99c. And planes don't normally fly too much more than a few miles up, cell signals ought to travel that far, anyway -- it's not like there's much to interfere with them.
Whatever the case, one of the things we learned conclusively from September 11th, is that you
can successfully use a cell phone on a plane under at least
some conditions, and flight #93 didn't crash due to cell phone interference.