why do they ask us to keep our devices on airplane mode on a plane but the WiFi is allowed?
In: Technology
A cellphone’s cell signal maximum transmission power is 100x stronger than its wifi maximum transmission power.
When you’re up in the air and the cellphone can’t connect to a cell tower it will try transmitting at that maximum power until it finds one.
All those cellphones transmitting at maximum power will cause interference for phone users on the ground and they also take a better safe than sorry approach in terms of interfering with aircraft systems.
The onboard wifi network, requiring much less transmission power, is considered safe. Also something that has already rolled out on some airlines is installing a mini cell tower in the aircraft that phones can connect to. It will tell the phone to use low transmission power modes so there’s no need for airplane mode.
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