Joe Geiser writes:

> OK, so I could connect to the 'net from 35,000 feet - sure, at $2.95 set up,
>  and $2.95 a minute -- yeah, right!  (The rip-off phone service which keeps
>  you from using your own cell-phone - grrrrr, don't get me started on this
>  sore subject)
>
>  Cheers,
>  Joe (who uses his PCS/Analog Dual-Band phone just fine in Geiser Air :)

During the World's Largest Poster Project a couple of years ago, I asked the
helicopter pilot that flew the photographers above the completed poster if we
could communicate with him from the football field using cell phones. He said
no. It was illegal.

I said, "Oh. Why's that?"

He said that it wasn't the FAA that outlawed it, as you might think. It was
the FCC. Cell phones were designed to work primarily only within one "cell"
at a time. When you're up about a thousand feet or higher, you light up every
cell that you can see out to the horizon and put a tremendous load on the
system.

Wirt Atmar