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Is Your PDA Cleared for Takeoff?
The Travel Technologist · August 16, 2002

On a recent flight from Newark, N.J., to Orlando, Mike Corbo decided to check his e-mail. But instead of plugging into a $3.99-a-minute in-flight phone, he powered up his Palm VII and downloaded the messages wirelessly, at 35,000 feet.

"I found that as long as we were flying over a major city I would easily connect and send or receive email without a problem," says the Lyndhurst, N.J., information systems manager. No one tried to stop Corbo because what he did is perfectly legal. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't ban the onboard use of a personal digital assistant — even one that can connect to the Internet through a cellular network — according to agency spokesman Paul Takemoto. "He isn't violating any rule," he says.

If, on the other hand, Corbo had been using a portable phone, he'd be breaking a Federal Communications Commission rule that prohibits the use of cellular devices on planes, Takemoto adds. The operation of a cellular phone is thought to interfere with an aircraft's navigational systems.

But in an age of convergence, who's to say what's a PDA or a cell phone? That's a question Bob Johnson may have to ask himself soon. The Houston consultant uses his Blackberry to connect to the Internet wirelessly all the time — including from a commercial aircraft.

"It connects every time I pass over a served city and am in range of a transmitter," he says. "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."

What if Johnson decides to upgrade to a BlackBerry 5810, which offers optional phone service? Is he still using a PDA or is it a phone — or something in between? Do the FCC rules apply to his handheld device?

Terry Wiseman, an expert on in-flight communications systems and editor of the newsletter Airfax.com, says people may bicker over where a PDA ends and a cell phone begins, but in some respects, both devices do the same thing. "A personal digital assistant may use less bandwidth to check e-mail, but basically you're using the same frequency as a cellular phone, and in much the same way," he says. He suggests that the government's policy on PDAs may be outdated, given the convergence of phones and computing devices.

Matt Greer hopes the rules stay the way they are. On some PDAs, you can't power down the wireless connection unless you shut the device completely off. "Unless there's a way to disable the phone part of the device so you could use other applications, like text editors, you won't be able to get anything done during the flight," says the Lake Jackson, Tex., chemical engineer.

Others, like John Turner, are skeptical that the existing rules are anything more than a ploy to help airlines earn more money. "Do cell phones interfere with navigational equipment?" asks the Mclean, Va., frequent traveler. "Make them prove it. I'm an electrical engineer, and I can't for the life of me see how a cell phone is going to mess up aircraft navigation systems. I'm suspicious that they just want to sell minutes on those seat-back phones."

But Sharon Wingler, a flight attendant and author of the book "Travel Alone & Love It: A Flight Attendant's Guide to Solo Travel," thinks using any kind of wireless device aboard a plane is unsafe, and that any loopholes in policy should be closed as soon as possible. "It's hard to describe how frightening it is when the pilots call back to tell me that they're having instrument problems and ask me to hurry through the cabin to see if some idiot is using his cell phone or illegal PDA," she says.

"Don't we have enough to worry about now?"

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on USAToday.com.