Unnamed Administration sources reported that Jerry Scharf said:
Actually, there's a general misunderstanding about his. The ban is not an FAA ban, and has nothing to do with the flight control systems. The rule is an FCC rule, and the concern in saturating sell site slots as a single phone could tie up slots on many more cells from 35000 ft with no abstructions.
Not quite. There *IS* intense FAA concern, and there is FCC as well. There HAVE been documented cases of interference with flight control systems. It's impossible to rule out that the next case won't cause real problems. So the FAA has said Thus and So. If push comes to shove, I can find the Federal Air Regulation involved. Lest you think this is all overblown nonsense, the AC mfgrs and flight test community regularly has problems like this. One I know of involved a new transponder antenna, and bogus radar altimeter reading ONLY when the nose gear was deployed. See, the antenna was mounted near the nose gear on the NASA test bird, and when the gear stuck out..... Recall that the cockpit and electronics bay are in effect, a NOC and host site....except that when Something Goes Way Wrong, it gets LOTS more headlines and funerals than a NJ CO basement flood. And the "NOC staff" does not have the option of standing up and walking away when the preprocessed protein passes through the ventilation. The FCC does also have an obvious interest in the cell infrastructure. But back to as it relates to NOCs... RFI is very tricky stuff. To it, all those cables you call CAT5 it calls "antennas". One problem is in the US is not even consumer gear, much less business, is required to pass RF susceptibility tests. The EIA basically got the FCC in the 70's to go along with "If there's a problem, we'll fix it then..." And YES, RFI can do really naughty things like crash ESS switches. So I fully understand the attitude of folks who ban emitters in machine rooms. You may never ever have a problem, and that's great... But. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433