AIRLINES, TECH FIRMS WANT GUIDELINES FOR IN-FLIGHT WIRELESS USE

Hope is that FAA could commission such evaluation to RTCA, formerly Radio & Technical Commission for Aeronautics, Dimtroff said. He said RTCA’s role in aviation standards world was similar to that of IEEE for Internet technology. While Dimtroff, who is in FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service, has approached RTCA about establishing special advisory committee, it would require FCC approval. “It’s a very complex issue,” he said. One factor in that complexity is that legacy model aircraft may have avionics systems that have different degree of radiofrequency protection than newer planes. “There are quite a mix of aircraft out there that we need to assure that the whole spectrum of aircraft equipage is protected unless the operators want to designate specific aircraft that are eligible to use to these wireless devices,” he said. While FAA’s primary concern is safety, he said FCC had purview over actual laptop devices carried onto planes. “It’s going to be a complex issue to try to set some standard,” he said. “The FCC may engage with the FAA. I'm open to that.”

Airline and wireless industry officials at conference said they were struggling with how to balance consumer interest in using those devices on aircraft with how to protect avionics systems from interference. Panelists stressed that existing standards and federal regulations in that area generally predated proliferation in consumer wireless devices. One existing RTCA certification standard covers only fixed electronic devices and doesn’t address newer, wireless electronic technology such as Wi-Fi and Blackberry, participants said. “We have two choices,” said Erik Miller of American Airlines. One option is for airlines to continue to be held accountable for implementing FAA rule that bans in-flight electronic device use in most cases. “Nobody wins out of that,” he said. “The airlines don’t win, the passenger doesn’t win. The folks who are trying to sell consumer devices don’t win.” Other option is to take proactive step to find solution that doesn’t just require flight attendants to be enforcers against use, he said.

T-Mobile USA recently signed pact with American, Delta and United to provide 802.11b wireless Internet access in 40 airports in the U.S., said John Darbo, mgr.-American Airlines quality measurement process. In cabins, however, latest devices can create confusion about when wireless gear is transmitting and when it isn’t, he said. “Our flight attendants cannot be policemen, they just aren’t equipped for that,” he said. Of 7 airlines polled by Air Transport Assn. on converged devices, such as PDAs combined with cellphones, none allow their use during critical flight phases, such as takeoff and landing, he said. Two have policy for multifunction devices, with one banning in-flight use and another allowing their use during noncritical flight phases. Other 5 don’t have policy yet, Darbo said.

There’s lack of clarity on what it means when devices have “airplane safe” mode that means they aren’t transmitting, Darbo said. “We need to have a common language,” he said, and cited fact that there are no technical specifications on what terms such as “airplane safe” mode mean. He also questioned whether there were technical data to support FAA regulation that barred operation of portable electronic devices aboard aircraft unless operator of plane had determined they wouldn’t cause interference. He and others said those issues were becoming more relevant not only because portable electronic devices continued to grow but because more now were sold with embedded capabilities such as 802.11. Darbo said questions over those devices led him to create portable electronic device task force at American in Oct.

“We would like the federal government to take a more active role in both research and federal regulatory issues,” he said. Public also must be taught how to address aircraft safety on “appropriate use” of wireless devices in flight, which could be carried out through warning labels and tutorials, Darbo said. “We know that PED [portable electronic devices] emit unintended radio signals at both their fundamental and harmonic frequencies, stronger than FCC allows in some cases,” he said. Navigation equipment appears to be particularly susceptible to interference from such devices, for which shielding measures could provide protection, he said. Device testing should continue by FAA, airline industry, aircraft manufacturers and consumer electronics industry to probe their “compatibility with aircraft systems,” Darbo said.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group has lobbied FAA to help create some standard test methodology, said Jeffrey Schiffer, co-dir. of wireless research at Intel Labs. He said Bluetooth devices were first commercially available units that would be intentional radiators that passengers could carry onto aircrafts, he said. One challenge to handing off standards in that area to traditional policy groups such as IEEE is that industry specifications don’t require devices to incorporate features that might be needed to protect planes, such as shutoff mechanisms, he said. Developing test methodology with RTCA could roll back to airline community itself to get testing done on aircraft. “So this is what we're really after, using the RTCA to develop a test methodology that everybody agrees on to test intentional radiators on aircraft and have that then rolled out to the airline community so they could perform that testing,” he said.

Guidelines for manufacturers would cover such issues as how equipment makers could implement solutions for safe aircraft operation, including user-controlled mechanisms for shut-off and light that indicated when device was operating, Schiffer said. Current RTCA standard DO-160 covers fixed location electronic certification, but addresses devices such as microwaves and not mobile technology, he said. European counterpart to FAA, Joint Aviation Authority, has issued leaflet permitting Bluetooth operation during “noncritical” flight times, he said.

“It’s incumbent on us as a group to come up with a system that’s going to operate regardless of the shielding types,” said Tom Roslak, Symbol Technologies vp-strategic markets. “That’s really the challenge for all of us. From Symbol’s point of view, we're looking for the guideline.” He said another issue was that users of laptop PCs and other devices often weren’t familiar with all capabilities of their technology and might not be aware that part of their device was in transmit mode. WAEA board vp Mary Rogozinski, who is involved in marketing cabin electronics for United Airlines, said several panelists had raised concept of radiofrequency shielding that could be placed on plane’s windows to provide another layer against RF interference. Problem with that, she said, is that airline industry doesn’t have funds right now to make such investments.

One key missing link is requirements for manufacturers on how to build devices that will be used on aircraft, Schiffer said. “The real issue here is there are no test standards or implementation guidelines to evaluate the safety of these devices.” Before introduction of Bluetooth-based devices in late 1990s, RTCA conducted study on individual devices such as laptops and cellphones that didn’t include intentional radiators, but focused on impact to avionics systems, he said. Now devices that are on planes typically are multifunction, involving GPS, ultrawideband, versions of 802.11 and Bluetooth. “Now that you've got lots of intentional radiators coming on an aircraft, you've got no methodology in place to control them or even monitor their existence,” he said. Devices in 2.4 GHz band could operate via peer-to-peer communications without using access point, although units at 5 GHz are being recommended to use access point because there’s no global harmonization of band, Schiffer said. “All these intentional radiators over the last 4 years are starting to proliferate in the cabin,” he said. “There are no regulations on how to build these devices. There are no regulations for these devices except to shut them down, which is an unacceptable solution for the passenger.” Disconnect between standards process and manufacturing is that specifications can’t dictate implementation issues, Schiffer said. He said airline industry officials and FAA had been leaning toward test methodology through RTCA process that would test systems operating at power level hundreds of times higher than aggregate levels that would occur in airplane cabin, he said. That could be way to start evaluating impact on aircraft of devices operating at 2.4 GHz, he said. Schiffer said he would like to get RTCA started on re-evaluating situation for personal electronic devices and protection aircraft have for intentional radiation emissions. Usefulness of such testing is that RTCA is independent body that serves in advisory role to FAA, he said.