Originally Posted by
beardy
network overload (one phone connecting to several cells simultaneously when airborne.)
Phones on the ground also 'connect' to more than one cell simultaneously.
When your phone is switched on, but you are not making a call, it will be hand-shaking with the cell and adjacent cells establishing the best signal and also the location of the phone.
Unless you are in range of only one cell the system can triangulate you to a position in a cell.
All that would happen while airborne is more cells would try and hand shake and the strongest in-range cell would change frequently. I am sure there have been many, many phones left on in the air with no untoward disaster. Your inter-city 125s will pose a similar problem with several hundred phones hopping rapidly as you pass through a town.