It's because the original specifications for GSM used a timing advance mechanism to compensate for the propagation delay between phone and base station which varies with distance. The maximum speed that the system could handle was around 150kph. Also it was designed to be a terrestrial system. Base stations don't radiate upwards.

Or maybe this is another reason to not believe everything you read on the internet?
Whatever..

why would cellphones interfere? don't they operate on different frequencies?

The real reason? You don't want the massive roaming charges attached to your phone on a cross country flight because of switching tower-to-tower-to-tower constantly. Your bill would be massive.

I always thought it had something to do with air traffic control frequencies and phones interfering with the tower… and now that I think about it, that is totally retarded because EVERYONE in the airport has or is on a fucking cell phone. Thanks for the info :)

It's actually been safe to use cellphones for years. they keep a ban because otherwise, it's annoying for everyone who likes to sleep on a plane.

No.

That is so not the real reason.

How about I don't want to be on a 6 hour flight across the country listening to imbeciles chatting about what they had for breakfast.

This is a half truth. Even if the FCC lifted the ban, the FAA still requires that electronic devices that are capable of transmitting are certified not to interfere with electronics of a particular model of aircraft. So… under current rules, each and every model of cell phone would have to be tested and certified safe to use on each and every model of commercial aircraft. In other words, not gonna happen.

Another difference between highway traffic and airplane passengers is your distance to cellphone towers. If you're on the ground, it is easy to tell which cell phone tower you are closest to, and then you are assigned a channel on that tower. However, when you're 30k feet up you may be nearly equidistant from many towers. That's a problem because you then take up a channel on all of them. More detail here!

I don't know if this is still true, but it was clearly stated in mobile network technical training materials I saw maybe five or six years ago. The difference to freeway traffic is in the speed. There is a maximum speed at which the system can track the jumps from cell to cell - and it's about the speed of a car. At hundreds of miles an hour, there are just too many possible cells to look for you in. Again, this was some years ago, and it may have changed.

The higher you fly, the closer you get to Heaven.
The cell-phones interfere with the conversations of the Angels {who are officially sanctioned as messengers of God!}
Duh…

This doesn't sound accurate… This also happens as tens of thousands of people travel down highways. Also, no one has service when they're in the air anyway - I have tried on several occasions with no success.

This is reason #486. In 2 weeks there will be another.

I thought it was to save the normal people from the assholes who talk really loudly. Who would want to be next to some girl for 8 hours listening to her yap about how long the flight is.

it's nice to finally know why. but frustrating that the reason is kind of dumb.