The New Mile-High Club
It may be possible to make a call from a plane today simply by turning on your phone, but that could create serious problem for both the airplane as well as carriers.
One theory says that when a phone is transmitting to towers on the ground from 30,000 feet, it is impossible to guarantee that the phone is connected to closest or best choice of cells. The handoff of a call from one cell to another is even more difficult to manage, because an airplane's speed and altitude could move a caller many cells away in just a few moments, creating confusion for the network.
Airplane safety is another critical factor to consider. in 2003 by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), compiled a report of all known airplane malfunctions that were attributed to mobile phones. However the evidence wound up being mostly anecdotal, there was no way to prove it was the phones causing the problems. Further weakening the report's impact, many of the incidents were minor at best, such as false luggage compartment warnings.
However since the CAA could not conclude anything from the compiled reports, they did a study to test the effect of cell phone on airplane flight systems under controlled conditions. For a phone to communicate with a tower on the ground while flying, it would need to operate at maximum power. The CAA study determined that the radio transmissions from just a few phones (4 - 5) operating at maximum power in the cabin could create enough interference to affect, at least to a minor but noticeable degree, a planes avionics - the mission critical components which guide and control a plane. A single phone used in the cockpit might be capable of causing the same amount of interference.
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