Quote:
Originally Posted by Iphinome
it is almost as if the rules around airports and airplanes are just pulled out of thin air and serve no real purpose.
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The reason for the rule is because of the way that mobile (cell) phones work; when they lose contact with a base station they increase their transmitter power in an attempt to reconnect - you've probably notice that if, for example, you're on a ship and out of contact with the network, your phone's battery will run flat very quickly. Imagine a plane with 400 phones on board, all transmitting a maximum power to attempt to contact a base station - that's a considerable amount of electrical interference to deal with.
Many European airlines do now permit mobile phones on board, and the way that they work is to have a base station on the aircraft itself, hence all the phones are working at minimum power, and there isn't the interference problem.