FCC unlikely to lift airplane cell phone ban

The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will ask fellow commissioners to keep in place a ban on mobile phone use during airplane flights.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that he has asked the commission to end its inquiry into whether mobile phones can be used safely on airplanes, based on concerns from ground-based wireless carriers that the calls could interfere with their networks. The FCC’s proceeding to lift the ban on mobile phones, launched in December 2004, also drew comments from thousands of passengers who supported the ban.

“To add to the already high noise level within the aircraft by allowing the use of cell phones while in flight is absurd, in my opinion,” a Virginia man wrote to the commission in May.

“We are currently experiencing an extreme loss of civility in our country, and cell phones are part of the problem,” added a woman from Washington state, in an e-mail to the FCC last April. “Air travel is painful enough without having to listen to one or more cell phone conversations while you’re a captive audience.”

Verizon Wireless Inc. and the Cingular division of AT&T Inc. filed joint comments in August 2005, saying in-flight calls present “complex technical and engineering issues that have not been resolved to date.” Several proposed fixes to interference raised major questions, the two carriers said then. However, European airlines are gearing up to offer in-flight mobile phone service by the end of the year.

Northwest Airlines said in a May 2005 filing with the FCC that it wanted the in-flight call prohibition lifted as long as the FCC took steps to ensure safety. “We believe that the marketplace should ultimately decide whether or not [in-flight mobile technology] will be actually used on airborne aircraft,” the company said in its filing.

The FCC’s action would have needed to be accompanied by a change in rules at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Martin has told other commissioners he intends to have them vote to terminate the proceeding, an FCC spokeswoman said. Commissioners are still examining Martin’s proposal, she said.

The spokeswoman said she didn’t know why Europe seems to be moving ahead with in-flight service. A Verizon spokesman declined to comment on Europe’s move, saying the company deferred to the FCC’s authority on the issue.

But Bob Egan, chief analyst for research firm The Tower Group, said Europe could still back away from allowing in-flight calls. If Europe goes ahead with the service, it may be a matter of a more relaxed regulatory approach on some issues, he said.

Egan, a critic of in-flight calls, said interference concerns remain unresolved. “On a technical basis, I’m not sure the airline industry has done enough to ensure the safety of people,” he said.

But passenger annoyance would continue to be an issue if the technical challenges were fixed, he added. “It’d be just aggravating to other people,” he said. “Flight attendants would find themselves in wrestling matches.”

This story was updated on March 23, 2007