PM at 32000 feet?!?!?!
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04-06-2017 11:13 PM - edited 01-05-2022 01:55 AM
Was returning to Toronto from Amsterdam. The plane was somewhere near Toronto (between Montreal and Toronto) at 32000 ft.
Since the plane was about to land in some time I switched on my phone and was just fiddling around. While switching it on forgot to put it in the airplane mode (my bad!)
Suddenly I got voice mail alerts and could see PM network with 1 signal bar!!! It was for a brief time period, maybe 4-5 seconds.
But is that even possible? I don't think any cellphone reception is available at such altitude. Some airlines offer inflight cellphone access but that's limited to carriers like T-mobile and on U.S. flights.
My airline did not even have wifi services on board.
Any clue how did this happen?
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04-10-2017 02:17 PM - edited 04-10-2017 02:17 PM
At first I thought this thread was meant for us to provide a high level overview (ie. at 30,000 ft) of Public Mobile.
Intersting observation @neo911!
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04-08-2017 09:28 AM
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04-08-2017 02:16 AM
I remember one summer where I worked in the absolute middle of nowhere with no coverage at all at a drilling camp. Around once a week we would get into one of the helicopters we had on site and the pilot flew about three miles south and up maybe ten times the treeline height and voila, one bar of service! Closest tower was at least 100 miles away. We would check our messages that way.
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04-07-2017 10:18 AM
@sheytooncould be the only logical explanation. But its kinda freaky to see your cellphone receive signals so high up.
Well another reason people should shift to PM. get cellphone access at 32000 ft. ;o)
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04-07-2017 09:15 AM
I wonder if you were receiving a reflected signal by chance.
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04-07-2017 07:59 AM
Wind users lol! I was one earlier so I can very well relate to it.
But I did get voicemail alerts. So the reception was definitely there otherwise would not have got that
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04-07-2017 07:58 AM
No i did not attempt a call. Anyway the reception came for just couple of seconds.
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04-07-2017 07:22 AM
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04-07-2017 01:46 AM
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04-07-2017 12:51 AM
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04-07-2017 12:33 AM
@neo911 just because it shows reception does not mean you actually have reception (ask Wind users lol)
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04-07-2017 12:18 AM
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04-07-2017 12:17 AM - edited 04-07-2017 12:18 AM
I noticed the same effect also a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I was 32000 feet in the air though, but the altitude was quite high though. The signal actually disappeared upon further descent and then it came back again.
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04-06-2017 11:20 PM
I think this is a question for our resident cellular network expert, @sheytoon.
