Travel Technology - phone picked up texts and missed calls in gate-checked bag during flight

I had my smartphone(Sammy GSII) in my carry-on bag because I threw everything in there while going through security. I was already pretty late for my flight and ended up as the 3rd to last to board. The GA informed me that there was no more space and I had to gate-check my carry-on. I didn't really care, since I had a checked bag anyway, so I had to wait at baggage at the destination airport.

During the pre-flight video, I realized my phone was still powered on in the carry-on which was now in the cargo compartment. I told the FA and she said not to worry.(???)

Once I picked up the carry-on at baggage, I took the phone out. I showed several welcome messages from all the 6 countries that the flight flew over, as well as a few missed call alerts. How was this even possible? During most of the flight, the plane was at 35000 feet or higher and over water most of the time.... how did my phone pick up a signal at all?

It happens. I was able to successfully send a text message to my wife while I was in flight once. Forgot to turn off my phone and happened to notice that it was actually getting bars intermittently as picked up signals from the cell towers it was passing over. It won't last long, but it is possible to briefly establish connections if the phone is still on.

You actually told them? I would not have said anything.

Radio waves can travel a long distance without anything blocking their path, so it's totally possible.

Eeeek, your data roaming bill is going to hurt!

There is nothing blocking the signal and it will travel to the airplane. Speed is the only thing that won't let you make phone calls. Radio stations can be picked up pretty easy if you have AM/FM handset.

Let's share this with the readers of the Travel Technology forum. I'll move this there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

It's the same thing as picking up an AM news station from Seattle very clearly when traveling across the Hoover Dam. I'm not joking; I enjoyed listening to the Seattle Supersonics game while sitting in 3 hour traffic between Vegas and the Grand Canyon. :D

How was this even possible? During most of the flight, the plane was at 35000 feet or higher and over water most of the time.... how did my phone pick up a signal at all?

Cell phone signals can go 20+ miles - even farther depending on the technology.

It's the same thing as picking up an AM news station from Seattle very clearly when traveling across the Hoover Dam. I'm not joking; I enjoyed listening to the Seattle Supersonics game while sitting in 3 hour traffic between Vegas and the Grand Canyon. :D
I've done that before. I remember being in college in Ann Arbor MI and picking up an AM station from my hometown in Atlanta. I've also driven between Denver and Atlanta during the NBA playoffs a while back and got to choose between radio stations in NY and TX (it was 1999; I think it must've been spurs-knicks).

is it possible that all the SMS messages were downloaded to your phone when you landed ?

Soarer

is it possible that all the SMS messages were downloaded to your phone when you landed ?
from the description, some of them were the "welcome to So-and-So telco" messages you get when you first roam onto a foreign network - you would only get those if the phone actually connected.

Don't think he would have connected to any of those networks long enough for any significant data to be downloaded.

Eeeek, your data roaming bill is going to hurt!

SMS messages are pretty easy to pick up - small packets. Getting email would have been far harder to accomplish.

I've done it many times while flying private jet.
Pilots always say "feel free to use your phones" and I do.
At 30k feet, I sometimes can place calls, but I can always seem to get texts through.

Virgin is now going to allow use of cellular on their jets. They say that the new jets are designed so that cellular will not interfere with their avionics. More I am sure will follow.

Aboard any plane that has WiFi, my T-Mobile service includes VOIP that automatically transfers my cell number to internet. I can't place calls, but can send and receive texts and emails on my BBerry.

There are some good pages out in the interet that talk about the radiation cone from the antenna, the speed you are traveling, how long it takes to negotiate with the tower, etc and why only short bursty things like SMS can get through at times.

For example

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/cell-air.htm

Many of these were written after Sept 11th to try to explain what was considered not possible, making reliable voice calls from airplanes on a cell phone because I think many thought it could not be done given the limitations of the signal and distances covered with handoff's

It's the same thing as picking up an AM news station from Seattle very clearly when traveling across the Hoover Dam. I'm not joking; I enjoyed listening to the Seattle Supersonics game while sitting in 3 hour traffic between Vegas and the Grand Canyon. :D

When we roadtrip to Minnesota, across rural Iowa, we've picked up stuff from as far away as New Orleans. I got to listen to local New Orleans talk radio on the day bountygate broke...that was pretty cool!! A baseball fan out there could probably listen to Rockies, Royals, Cardinals, Cubs, White Sox, and Brewers all season long.

You also get a lot of total nutters on AM talk radio in the country, but that's another story...

Interestingly some avionics use GPRS to transmit telemetry instead of or in conjunction with the typically more costly sat uplinks. Most modern commercial and many private aircraft regularly send short packets of maint and performance telemetry during flight. Longhauls usually use sat but many short flights barely make it over 20.000 ft and that's well within radio range of GSM towers. Of course this telemetry has been tested to not conflict with filght Ops, but its the same technology.

As previously posted, I've made cell calls while flying private jet. This was via Verizon service.
I've been with T-Mobile for the past 7 or so years and have had no luck at all.

I'm wondering if CDMA technology is more apt to work in this situation than GSM, or was this just a fluke?

... made cell calls while flying private jet ... via Verizon service. ... T-Mobile for the past 7 or so years ... had no luck at all. I'm wondering if CDMA technology is more apt to work in this situation than GSM, or was this just a fluke?

Good question, going back 2 or 3 years on a long-haul UA flight making final descent (probably at 15,000 ft or so) when BBerries're at its peak, another FT sitting 2 rows in front of us was ringing loud & FA was mad/upset, he apologized and claimed that his device was on "airplane mode" in-flight & that he was just trying to turn it off as it was dark in the cabin after he was done reading his "off-line" emails & texting replies to be uploaded once on the ground ... Cruising attitude for that flight was mostly at 30,000 ft. so he might've been getting a signal all along, updating emails & received an incoming call - b/c he was quick to try to silence the BB with a drink in his other hand.

We're on a Bermuda cruise last week & picked up land-based VZW 3G signal when we're still miles & miles away approaching the NJ shores in the open water - ship's satellite tower was still ON but I was done catching up with 6 days worth of emails, messages & VM transcripts at 5:30 am before my caffeine fix & breakfast.

I've done it many times while flying private jet.
Pilots always say "feel free to use your phones" and I do.

Hmmm. I've flown private jets for over a decade now, and I've NEVER said that! LOL! My hippie Mom always lamented the fact that I was a rule follower. :D In my experience, the service has been so unreliable at altitude that I'd think it would be too frustrating to try to get a text out, much less make a call that lasted more than a few seconds.

I believe the cell use is only on Virgin Atlantic (not to be confused in any way with Virgin America), and they still won't let you use your cellphone within 200 miles of the US shore. My understanding is that the system is comprised of something like (maybe exactly like) a femtocell installed in the cabin which routes calls and texts through a satellite. I don't know what the pricing will be, but I suspect it won't be cheap.

I find it interesting (but not at all surprising) that they won't allow the service over US soil. I suspect that is an FAA or FCC stumbling block, and it makes me wonder how long it will take to overcome that to allow domestic carriers to offer this service.

So, I'm curious but a little confused about your T-Mobile wifi connection. You say it includes VOIP (VOICE over IP), but you can't make calls with it? Can you take calls? Or is it actually only for SMS & email? Can you make & take VOIP calls from a wifi hotspot on the ground? Try it if you haven't yet. If you can, I'm thinking what prevents you from making VOIP calls in the air is Gogo's throttling of VOIP packets.

I had the SMS greetings message happen once as well with a phone accidentally left on.