Originally Posted by
Dovster
Actually, my cell phone does interfere with my computer. When I leave it anywhere near my PC I can hear the phone through the speakers whenever it does a scan or there is an incoming call.
(I have no idea of what it is scanning for, but it does every so often. The static of an incoming call actually sounds before the phone itself rings.)
What you are hearing is the poorly shielded amplifiers in your PC speakers picking up low power GSM chatter as your phone identifies itself to the nearest cell tower. At worst case this would be 2 watts, and generally far less power.
The fact that cheap, crappy PC speakers have to be within a foot or two of a GSM phone to get any interference tells me that a properly shielded system in a commercial airliner is not going to have any problem with any current cell phones. It might, maybe, have been a problem with the older analog phones that sometimes were able to output several times the power level of current cell phones.