Will U Plz Shut Up?

Thanks to the ever growing modern technology, now you can use your Blackberry or mobile phone on certain Malaysia Airlines flight! I believe it's the first in the world for any airlines to allow the use of mobile phones on board.

PETALING JAYA: Passengers travelling on certain Malaysia Airlines flight will be able to use their mobile phones and Blackberry devices effective immediately.

MAS has teamed up with AeroMobile, the world’s leading in-flight mobile phone operator, to become the first carrier in Asia to offer inflight mobile phone and data services.

The lightweight system was installed on one MAS Boeing 777-200 aircraft. The service will cover selected European routes, Australia, and across the Asian region including China and Japan. More

The main reason for not allowing the use of mobile phones on flight is not because of "safety- it might affect navigation panels and computers in the cockpit". It was mainly the cost of international roaming and also messing up the billing system for the mobile provider!

Do they really think we can be fooled that even up to today's technology the Boeing & Airbus planes couldn't come up with a technology to shield the cockpit from the mobile interference? What's the difference between using a mobile while inside the plane body and inside the departure hall (normally staffs workers who is on mobile chatting)? Will the mobile wave recognizes that "oh, you're in the plane body, so I'm going to interfere with the system. Oh I'm in the building, so I can't interfere"? It doesn't make sense. (Maybe I'm ignorant..haha). I'm not denying the mobile radiowave can affect the systems or 2-way radios used by pilots though. I'm just saying, they should have figured out how to shield radiowave from the cockpit.

Imagine the plane traveling at nearly 900-1000KM/hr, how many different satellites or mobile exchange towers would it have gone through in just a minute? Not sure? Say you travel in your car, if your mobile shows you which areas you are in, it'll display the mobile exchange you are using. For example, "Melbourne, Carlton, Royal park, Footscray, etc". How fast can you switch from different exchange to another? That's travelling at an average speed of 60KM/hr. Imagine how messed the system would be with 200 travellers cruising at 1000KM/hr with their mobiles on. If the exchanges are all local to a single operator, it's fine but not international unless prior agreements were made.

In addition, mobile companies say using phones on planes can play havoc with their ground networks, because the antennae can't cope with relaying the signal from a phone which is travelling at 500mph. More

Hence why this part explains it all:

All four Malaysian mobile operators have agreed to allow their customers to roam internationally on board the aircraft and users would be billed on their regular phone bills as with any other international roaming call.

The GPRS data feature exploits AeroMobile’s unique capability to operate BlackBerry and other e-mail services using Inmarsat’s Swift64 satellite system, which has been added to the trial B777 aircraft.

Sounds amazing huh? NOT. Imagine all the uncles & aunties chit chatting with their kids, talking loudly, non-stop all the way through your flight! How are you going to sleep? Have your peace & quiet enjoyment? Nowadays, for a few babies on board, you'd be scare of not getting any sleep. What about 200 travellers talking on their mobile? Ok, maybe it's over exaggerating, let say 20% talks on their mobile? That's also 40 people talking! Imagine in a tram where only 1 or 2 people talk on their mobile, how annoying can it be? Everyone would look at the person straight into the eye, some may even "SSshhhHHhhh"!

I would be really worried next time I get on a MAS airplane from Melbourne! 7 hours of annoying chit chatting & ringtones! Maybe even repeating the same thing, "I'm on a plane". Sigh....Perhaps MAS should create a special room to talk mobiles in! Like how they did for smokers.

MAS is still struggling to be a profit making airline. Will this move gives more advantage to MAS or disadvantage? With more passengers more concerned about safety & comfort, I believe this will strongly disadvantage MAS.