Tristán White wrote:
I've been reading about this in various places, that they have found
out that private cellular mobile phones do NOT affect flight controls,
that this information is erroneous. Some report has come out.


Most planes aren't affected by mobiles, that is true. Some older planes
are, however, so don't go using your phone on any and all flights just
because you have read an article and think you know better.

A problem that still affects the use of mobiles on planes is that the
signal from a mobile high over land will reach a very broad area. Since
the same frequency is re-used many times in that area, it means that
several cells will be unable to use one of their frequencies.

Secondly the phone will be travelling extremely fast and so the cells
will have to handoff the call from cell to cell very quickly. That will
overload some systems, especially if a lot of people do it.

Thirdly the phone will have to pump up the output power to maximum to
bridge the distance from plane to ground and to get through the metal
skin of the plane. Your battery won't last very long.

Some enterprising airlines are planning to install microcells in their
planes that connect back to land via satellite or radio link. Mobiles
in planes will be able to roam onto these cells thus using much lower
power and solving the problem of blotting out frequencies across many
cells on the ground or handing off from cell to cell too quickly.
Unfortunately it also means that the airline can still set the pricing
and get a cut of the call charges.

http://theregister.co.uk/ has some details if you search.

Steve.