[stuartcr]

I've always been told that cellphones and wireless devices mess up the airplanes electronics. How come, all of a sudden, it's going to be OK?

[steve-b]

The real problem is that cell phones (if they can pick up a signal at all) are connecting to dozens of towers with about the same signal strength. This tends to screw up the cell network's system for routing calls.

Putting a cell station on the plane itself would fix that.

[safisoft]

I've always been told that cellphones and wireless devices mess up the airplanes electronics. How come, all of a sudden, it's going to be OK?

Most airliners are shielded.

I am an airline pilot for a major airline.

[NJ_gent]

"I've always been told that cellphones and wireless devices mess up the airplanes electronics. How come, all of a sudden, it's going to be OK?"

Because it was never a problem in the first place? Think about it for a whole three seconds: would you really trust your life to a machine that's launching you 30,000 ft into the air, but which will come crashing down when an extremely low-powered RF transmitter is activated? Your cell phone is safe enough to stick next to your ear 6 hours a day, but it'll mess up avionics 50 feet away with sheet metal and various other obstructions and shielding between you and it? Your cell phone isn't a 30 megawatt transmitter, and it's not going to cause any problems with any plane.

The only problem I'm aware of is that you're traveling so fast that if you were able to talk to cell towers, you'd be talking to several simultaneously, tying up enormouse resources for a single cell user. In that case, it would seem to be more of an FCC issue than an FAA or TSA problem.