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You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes (gizmodo.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 13 points 2 years ago (4 children)

That disruption is from a 2G/GSM handset. Those networks were turned off a decade ago.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Pilot here. Still on the A320 series it's obligatory to turn off the electrical devices for low visibility approaches (ILS Cat2/3) as aircraft's navigational systems are not protected (at least certified) against RF interference.

    Stupid article.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    As of Jan 31, 2024 any planes still not hardened their altimeters to meet group 4 performance are restricted from flying auto land, I/II ILS ; and for the most part the airlines still flying them aren’t using those planes in US airspace. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t any flying just that when they are they’re restricted by the FAA as to how they can operate.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Many more planes outside of US airspace, and plenty of those are rather older than 2024.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    The article was explicitly discussing US airspace, hence my comment about FAA regulations. No one is doubting that there are a significant number of planes elsewhere in the world, governed by other countries air authorities, that don’t need to deploy a fix to their altimeters to ensure no interference from outside radio sources. Also as we’re only ending the second month of the year I’d speculate that near 99% of the planes in operation are non 2024 models.

    Also, it’s important to note that it’s not the phones on the planes as much as the 5G towers in range of airports that cause the issues. That’s why the rollout of 5G-C towers near airports were on hold for several years to allow airlines to retrofit/upgrade their radio altimeters.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago*

    3G has been turned off in a lot of places, but 2G is still very much used globally. It's still the last fallback for phones to maintain basic texting and calling functionality. In many places emergency services also use it for e.g. emergency information via text message.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Can confirm. I own a pair of noise canceling earmuffs (meant for sport shooting; my dad was into guns). They're completely unshielded so I can pick up interference from all sorts of signals. It's fun to switch my phone between different networks to hear what 2G/3G/LTE/5G sounds like. I can even hear WiFi and find the dead spots in my house.

    Point I'm making is that GSM is still sticking around here as a backup so when I drop my phone to 2G it sounds exactly the same as it does in this video.

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