Did the altitude to turn off portable electronic devices change?

Question

I was on a Ted and then a United flight a week or so ago, and they told the cabin that a 18,000 feet, we had to turn off all portable electronics. It always used to be at 10,000. Is this just United/Ted that changed this, or is this a new FAA regulation? If so why did they change?

By the way, I took two United/Ted flights a few days before in 2007 and I didn't remember the 18,000 ft rule. My return flights (in 2008) that I was talking about above both said the 18,000 ft rule. So was it something that just went into effect this year? Why?

Answer 1

Its basically whenever the F/A feels like telling everyone to turn them off. Its not written in stone. They HAVE to bee off below 10K though.

Answer 2

The only reason they ask you to turn off electric devices is because they can possibly interfere with radio communications. There is no altitude requirement by the FAA, so it could be either a United Airlines regulation, or that just happens to be the point where your pilot left direct communications with Air Traffic and was given the okay to commence with his own navigations.

Answer 3

There is really no hard fast FAA rules that address portable electronic devices, so the airlines like to play CYA and error on the side of caution, as these rules were written in the days when an unshielded AM radio could throw the compass off. Todays modern aircraft have very robust avionics as they have to be reliable and operate in a harsh environment. The airlines don't want to get sued if it was proven that some ones lap top brought down an airliner because it got an erroneous reading on the ILS, not really likely to happen, but the airlines are pretty paranoid these days.