i just saw on ten news Australia that Qantas and Emirates will allow passengers to use mobiles on board during flight.
hmmm i wonder what ever happened to that problem about mobiles interrupting flight instruments??

Thats what I thought and I also heard that. I do believe that they have a cell phone "repeater" or it could be a satellite signal kind of like Air Tran having XM onboard. Very good question though, I hope someone could shed some more light on this.

http://www.flightlevel350.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9696

There have already been numerous discussions about this.

Mobile relays onboard planes will force phones to work at their minimal power setting instead of them blasting at full power when trying to contact the ground. With thousands of times less power problems are much less likely to appear.
Note that approval is still pending though...

My understanding is that the usage of mobile phones is also an FCC regulation. At least here in the US. The problem they have with people using their cell phones at high altitudes is the multitude of relay towers you tie up from way up there. It causes tons of dropped calls and tied up relay points for people on the ground.

There is already a topic about mobile phones , look at Kilrah's link.. So this one is closed.