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how come only European & Asian airlines let you talk on your own GSM phone on planes?

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how come only European & Asian airlines let you talk on your own GSM phone on planes?

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Old Feb 2, 2016, 2:05 pm
  #1  
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how come only European & Asian airlines let you talk on your own GSM phone on planes?
how come only European & Asian airlines let you talk/text
on your own GSM phone on planes?

I don't see any US airlines doing this right now. Is the FCC
or FAA allowing this in the US yet?
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 2:28 pm
  #2  
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When the plane is parked at the gate, you can talk on the phone.
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 3:22 pm
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Originally Posted by gfunkdave
When the plane is parked at the gate, you can talk on the phone.
I mean while the plane is in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic,
hundreds of miles from the nearest landmass.

such as this one:
http://www.aeromobile.net/airlines/
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 3:39 pm
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T-Mobile (USA) customers can use SMS (not voice) on domestic USA flights equipped with GoGo Internet:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...oice-phew.html
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 4:29 pm
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it would be a terrible flight to have everyone on the plane being able to talk for the complete flight.....


can you here me now ??????
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 5:08 pm
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Originally Posted by LAXlocal
it would be a terrible flight to have everyone on the plane being able to talk for the complete flight.....


can you here me now ??????
I think that's highly unlikely.... at $6 per minute, who can afford to do that?
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 6:10 pm
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The US carriers are hardly alone.
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Old Feb 2, 2016, 11:44 pm
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Originally Posted by mia
T-Mobile (USA) customers can use SMS (not voice) on domestic USA flights equipped with GoGo Internet:
Except it's not really SMS. It's SMS-over-Internet.
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 1:49 am
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 7:11 am
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This irrational fear about dozens of loud people talking on their phones is proven wrong each and every day on flights that have GSM micro-cells onboard. And indeed it has been proven wrong for at least 20 years in the US with the GTE satellite phones.
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 9:41 am
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Originally Posted by stimpy
This irrational fear about dozens of loud people talking on their phones is proven wrong each and every day on flights that have GSM micro-cells onboard. And indeed it has been proven wrong for at least 20 years in the US with the GTE satellite phones.

don't even need phones.. I've been on many flights where people talk to
each other LOUDLY.
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 10:21 am
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Originally Posted by stimpy
This irrational fear about dozens of loud people talking on their phones is proven wrong each and every day on flights that have GSM micro-cells onboard. And indeed it has been proven wrong for at least 20 years in the US with the GTE satellite phones.
And yet, at least on Lufthansa, "making mobile phone calls has been disabled in response to the wishes of a majority of our customers. Likewise, Internet telephony (VOIP) is not permitted."

Satellite phones only work because they are $10/minute, so any calls are going to be generally very short.
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 10:32 am
  #13  
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Originally Posted by docbert
Satellite phones only work because they are $10/minute, so any calls are going to be generally very short.
$10 per minute is the public price. Most corporate travelers pay much less. In some cases much, much less as in a nickel a minute. But still we don't talk for long because it's either a short business exchange or we are just listening in on a conference call.
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Old Feb 3, 2016, 11:26 pm
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Originally Posted by docbert
And yet, at least on Lufthansa, "making mobile phone calls has been disabled in response to the wishes of a majority of our customers. Likewise, Internet telephony (VOIP) is not permitted."
...
I was able to connect to my Asterisk server at home via VPN and make VOIP calls on a Lufthansa flight using a VOIP client on my smartphone.
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Old Feb 4, 2016, 8:48 am
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Originally Posted by daniellam
I was able to connect to my Asterisk server at home via VPN and make VOIP calls on a Lufthansa flight using a VOIP client on my smartphone.
Yes if you use a VPN there's realistically nothing the airline can do about it.
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