Yes redsnail you don't want them to be angry during the flight. Once I knew that my bag could not possibly have made the connection as we were late into FRA. At DTW I was not surprised by the non-arrival and collected the form to fill in (it was 1999) whilst the other pax all moaned and shouted at the staff.
As to Vodafone links affecting BA systems? After too many years in IT, it was imperative that no external system could take yours down. Last year the ATC system proved that it also could not Fail Safe. Either BA are telling an untruth - or their systems are even worse than we already know.