Use of wireless devices may soon be allowed during commercial airline flights if the Consumer Electronics Association’s recently announced standardization project goes as planned.
The group this week launched a project to create a new industry standard to help manage the use of wireless services onboard aircraft. CEA said it has established a working group that includes more than 35 representatives of wireless device and component manufacturers, airlines, pilots and flight attendants to develop a “recommended practice” to provide a standard way of showing that a wireless device’s transmitter has been disabled, which would allow for the use of certain features of wireless devices.
“Many wireless devices can operate without transmitting, such as the use of a game player on a mobile phone, or the use of a personal organizer on a wireless PDA,” said Douglas Johnson, senior director for technology policy at CEA. “In these and similar cases, we expect it will be useful for airline passengers and others to know and be able to verify whether the wireless part of their device is enabled or disabled.”
CEA noted that the developing standard could also be useful in hospital environments.
