Using a mobile phone on a Ryanair flight

koster | 19:23 Mon 24th Mar 2008 | Travel

4 Answers

In 2006 it was reported that Ryanair was planning to make using mobile phones during the flight possible.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5298332.st m

Did anything ever become of this?

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Buenchico

The proposals met with massive resistance.

The problem with switching on a mobile phone in a plane is that it periodically sends out an "I am here" message to try to stay in touch with the phone network. (If you've ever left a mobile phone near to a radio, you'll have heard these signals). In order to save battery life, these signals are initially sent at a very low power level.. However, if no response is received from a transmitter, the phone repeatedly tries to send signals with increasing power levels. It's these high-powered signals which are most likely to interfere with the aircraft's own electronic systems.

The Ryanair proposal was for customers to be able to connect their phones (at low power) to an onboard local network, which then used a separate signal to reach ground-based transmitters. There were two problems with this. Firstly, customers would have to pay a high fee to connect to the onboard network. More importantly, though, it would mean that phones which were locked to a particular network (or where the owner simply tried to bypass Ryanair's charges) would still be sending out high-powered signals to try to connect to a conventional network, which posed possible safety risks to the aircraft's electronics.

So, there's no change to the standard rules on using mobiles on an aircraft:
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=i nf&quest=mobilephones

Chris

koster

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Thanks!