Reflecting on the panicked cell-phone calls made from four hijacked commercial airliners last Sept. 11, wireless technology analyst Gerry Purdy has two questions for the aviation industry.
Why is cell-phone use on aircraft prohibited? And if cell phones cause interference with the navigation system of the plane, as the industry claims, then why aren't airlines making sure they are turned off in flight?
"If it can't be proven to be hazardous, then we should stop doing something silly," Purdy said.
To Purdy's dismay, little has changed in terms of air-to-ground communication for aircraft passengers since the terrorist attacks.
Besides wireless e-mail, which is available to passengers of a few airlines, including Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Airways and Singapore Airlines, the only option for passengers to communicate with the ground is a seat-back phone. Purdy considers the seat-back phones "pricey" and limited.
AT&T Wireless, one of only two providers for seat-back service in the United States, recently withdrew from the business.
"With the advent of mobile phones and an increase in usage, the market really wasn't there (for airplane seat-back phones)," said Ritch Blasi, spokesman for AT&T Wireless. "It was a very, very small part of our business, maybe less than one-half percent if you looked at our revenues."
Even though cell phones proved to be valuable to several passengers of the doomed flights, they remain illegal in flight.
A judge in Manchester, England, this week sentenced a 23-year-old man to a four-month prison term for endangering the safety of an aircraft by playing a video game on his cell phone. Judge Timothy Mort even suggested that airlines confiscate all telephones from passengers before a flight.
A familiar scene on many flights today is the sight of flight attendants busily admonishing travelers to turn off their cell phones before takeoff.
"Like when I get onto a plane and I want to let my wife know when I want to be picked up, I get yelled at to turn off my cell phone," Purdy said. "Usually, I lean over to the window and put my head in such a way that people can't hear what I am saying."
While the Federal Aviation Administration says it bans the use of cell phones because they may interfere with the navigation system of the plane, Purdy isn't convinced by the industry's evidence. Even flying experts admit that cell phones operate in different frequencies from on-board equipment. And they have not been able to repeat simulated instances of interference in a laboratory.
If anything, it's easy to assume that cell phones are often left on, by accident, on hundreds of flights a day.
"If they are interfering with navigation, you ought to get serious enough to not only tell people to turn them off, but to detect them and make sure they are turned off," Purdy said.
FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette said the industry errs on the side of safety and has no plans to lift the ban. She added that there has been no movement to legalize their use on aircraft, anyway.
The cell-phone industry agrees.
"The trend previously to Sept. 11 had been for seat phone removal," said Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. "I do not know if that trend has changed since."
Even if it did, Purdy would have to oblige by the Federal Communications Commission's prohibition of cell phones in flight.
The FCC bans them because it says their signals could interfere with other cell-phone calls on the ground. Yet, as Purdy and others point out, the phone calls made from the hijacked flights last year went through just fine.
"Problems exist and sometimes cell phones are the only way to communicate in a disaster," Purdy said.
CNN commentator Barbara Olson called her husband twice on a cell phone to tell him the plane she had boarded had been hijacked.
She told her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the hijackers were wearing red bandanas and brandishing knives and box cutters, and that they had herded the passengers to the back of the plane.
Ted Olson notified the Justice Department command center immediately, but Barbara Olson died along with the other passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.
Other passengers with cell phones aboard Flight 77, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 -- which were piloted by terrorists into the World Trade Center -- and United Flight 93 that fell near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, made similar calls to loved ones.
