Flight of peace or the mobile menace?
31 March 2008
I’ll be honest, this is one of those weeks when I have written this leader a few days in advance so that the joys of APEX (and Las Vegas) are left unhindered by the requirements of the ‘day job’. So if the electronics industry has collapsed in the past three days then my apologies for apparently not considering it newsworthy in this column.
Instead my focus at the moment is on flying out to Las Vegas for APEX - one of the biggest events on the electronics industry’s calendar. In last week’s issue of EMTWorldWide we brought to you news of APEX’s conference schedule, EMS and PCB programme, professional development programme and of course, the exhibition itself. If you click on APEX in EMTWorldWide’s Diary section you will find all relevant features and product announcements there. So I won’t bother repeating any of this, except to say, if you are reading this on Tuesday, the first day of the show, and you are within striking distance of Las Vegas it is still not late to consider a visit.
But, like I said, my focus is on flying out to Las Vegas and this ties in with a bit of news that has just hit the wires and sent shock waves of fear throughout my body. The fear is not because I am a nervous passenger. I find long haul journeys a bit of a chore but not to the extent that it would stop me going to an event I wanted to go to, irrespective of how large my environmental footprint is and how irresponsible this is environmentally. In truth I do not fly enough to have significant environmentally-generated guilt, and some level of international travel is an essential and unavoidable part of my remit.
Nor is the fear for the safety of me and my fellow passengers. Apparently replicating the detrimental effects of mobile phones on aircraft navigation systems has been impossible, the implication being that the negative effects of mobile phones are no more than a myth based on a few coincidences back in the pioneering days of mobile telephony. It is still fair to say that I would not want to be the person responsible for proving that the myth was a fact by sending the aircraft’s electronics system into meltdown with a mis-timed call to a loved one; but as phones would still not be allowed during take-off, landing and at any altitude under 3000m, then we should be safe enough at critical times.
The service will work (if implemented) by installing a small base station on the plane that links via satellite to terrestrial networks, and which would only be switched on after the plane had reached a safe altitude.
So what is it that makes my blood run cold about mobile phones on aircraft? Nothing to do with electronics manufacturing or safety – it is just the thought of spending my 11 hour flight to Las Vegas sitting next to someone who is shouting down the phone ‘Its not a very good line – I’m calling from 36,000 feet, you know!’ And there could be someone behind me doing the same, and another in front; all competing for the internal airspace inside the cabin. It would transform international air transport from a necessary, but bearable, ordeal, into a form of torture.
Sadly there is no indication that self-regulation will work. There is a breed of person who thinks that their conversations are interesting, even entertaining, to all those around. These people place no significance as to what is a ‘public place’ or that other members of the public might want to use that place in relative peace. Indeed, in the same way as anyone who misuses a car by drinking before driving, it should be banned from driving, so people with such a cavalier to mobile phone use should be barred from using them. Permanently. Especially if they are anywhere near me in a confined space – like on a plane.
The winners will be the airlines who resist the temptation to go down this route – at least they will win my business!
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