| | What are the Rules for PDA's in the air.
Even though the use of cell phones is not allowed, frequent fliers have been successful in downloading messages wirelessly from 35,000 feet when over major cities.
One frequent flier says, "It connects every time I pass over a served city and am in range of a transmitter, So when I go from Houston to Denver, I have connected service over Dallas, and approaching Colorado Springs. I've only had one person tell me to make sure the transmitter is turned off, and that was on the ground in Austin last week."
This is legal because the FAA doesn't ban use of PDA's, that goes for those PDA's equipped with network capabilities too.
The Palm network, for an example is built on a mobile data system known as Mobitex. The Palm.net service runs on the Cingular Mobitex Packet Data Network. This network has best been known for it's support of two way pagers. The Palm i705 is essentially an enhanced two way pager. The network is also used by package delivery companies, cab companies, truck companies and many other transportation related activities requiring reliable to way communication while in motion.
The Federal Communications Commission rule prohibits the use of cellular phones on planes, because they are thought to interfere with the planes navigational systems.
Blackberry devices also have cellular capablilities and fall into this category as well, somewhere between a PDA and a cellphone. But, blackBerry devices can also switch off the wireless function but still be used to compose E-mail.
Many fliers are still skeptical that cell phone usage on planes even has any affect on the planes navigation systems. Personally I think that maybe if you had 100 passengers on cellphones, all at the same time, that there might be some aggregate effect.
In the meantime, we can keep using our PDAs. It is unknown whether this wireless technology will be grouped in the same definition as "Cellular Telephones".
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