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"It\u2019s been more than a week since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, flying out of Malaysia and bound for Beijing, China, disappeared. The search for the plane, now part of a criminal investigation, spans thousands and thousands of miles. With the missing Boeing 777 are 239 souls, their fate unknown and the possibilities heart-wrenching.\nThe desperation for resolution is so keen that the idea that technology could somehow, even now, reconnect the lost with their loved ones is seized upon -\u2013 only to be debunked by clearer heads.\nTechnology is so often the solution that it\u2019s hard to imagine it could fail us so completely. So we soldier on with new theories.\nWere they pinging?\nIt\u2019s estimated that one in five people around the world now owns a smartphone. By that measure, we can safely assume that roughly 50 people on that flight were carrying data-capable smartphones. Add in feature phones, and the number of mobile devices on MH370 probably grows significantly.\nSee also: Did Malaysia Airlines Plane Escape in the 'Shadow' of Another Jet?\nA recent Consumer Electronics Association Study reported that 30% of flyers forget to power-down their devices during take-off and landing. So it\u2019s fair to assume that at least some small percentage of flight MH370 passengers may have had their phones on for the duration of the flight. It\u2019s also possible that others powered up their phones when the plane diverted course.\nWhich leads to the possibility that cellphones onboard flight MH370 were pinging cell towers (looking for a network signal) on the ground.\nExperts, however, are less certain.\nThe limits of cell tower technology\nIt\u2019s true, smartphones in the air can connect with cell towers on the ground. These towers, depending on technology (GSM, CDMA), have a range of connectivity that goes up to miles. GSM tops out at about 21 miles. Plus, it only takes one tower to achieve connectivity.\nOf course, when you\u2019re flying on an airplane, said tech and wireless analyst Jeff Kagan, \u201Cyou\u2019re connecting from cell tower, to cell tower, to cell tower very quickly,\u201D and that\u2019s assuming you\u2019re flying relatively low and over densely populated cities.\nFlight MH370 was apparently cruising at 35,000 when it disappeared. That\u2019s more than double what Kagan sees as a workable range for cell-tower connectivity.\nLet\u2019s say, though, for the sake of argument, that the plane was, as some have reported, flying at 5,000 feet in an effort to avoid radar detection. That\u2019s well within connectivity range.\nHowever, if you look at the embedded ESRI map, you\u2019ll note that the population densities for most of MH370\u2019s flight path are relatively low. This is critical because the cell providers that operate in those areas, China Mobile and Celcom, would naturally add more towers in densely populated areas, where the bandwidth needs are greatest, and, probably, worry less about cell coverage for largely uninhabited areas.\n\nThen there\u2019s the water.\nMuch of flight MH370\u2019s journey may have been over water. As far as Kagan, who\u2019s been tracking the industry for 30 years, knows, no cell company is currently dotting the seas with cell towers.\nKagan, though, isn\u2019t willing to say that a random ping or connectivity wasn\u2019t achieved at some point. \u201CI\u2019m not going to say there was never any connection, because I don\u2019t know where it was flying or how high it was flying.\u201D\nWhat about 9/11?\n13 years ago, a series of desperate phone calls helped paint the shocking picture of the last moments of the passengers and crews of the three 9/11 hijacked airplanes. A number of those calls were apparently made with cellphones, even though some of them may have been conducted at altitudes that are technically impossible.\nThe 9/11 investigation site Consensus911.org points out both the conflicting evidence and reports, but fails to reach much of a conclusion.\nIf you believe the initial report that some 9/11 calls to the ground were conducted while the airplanes were above 35,000 feet, then it\u2019s plausible that flight MH370 passengers who had working cellphones could have reached ground-based cell-towers at almost any point and almost any altitude.\nUp to this point, however, not a single piece of communication from MH370 has emerged.\nOther connection options\nIf cell service failed the passengers, what about GPS? Unfortunately, GPS is not a two-way communication system. The GPS chip in your phone communicates with satellites, each of which tells you where it is, so your phone can figure out \u2014 based on how long it takes the signals to travel back and forth between your phone and the satellites \u2014 where it is. The satellite knows nothing about you or where you are.\nCellphone towers can, too, be used to triangulate your position, but considering how fast a plane flies (at least 600 mph), the likelihood that you\u2019d be able to find a cluster of cell towers and hold onto their signal for more than a millisecond is minimal.\nInside the plane\nEven if not a single passenger had an active cellphone or was able to pick up a cell signal, the plane\u2019s first class may have been equipped with a rudimentary air-to-ground communication system. According to Malaysia Airline\u2019s Business Class page, the in-seat entertainment systems include air-to-ground phones that also let passengers send and receive emails \u201Cmidflight.\u201D Thus far, we have yet to see or hear of a single inflight message from the missing jet, which could mean this flight was not equipped with the Business Class system.\nPassengers and social\nFinding social interactions before or (far less likely) during the flight is made more difficult because the majority of the passengers are Chinese and use Chinese language-only social networks like Weibo.\nAt press time, only a handful of pre-flight social media interactions have emerged. The Straits Times reported one passenger, Zhang Jianwu, 31, posted this reply to a query about his location on Weibo, China\u2019s Twitter-like social media platform, \"You guess?\" wrote Zhang.\nShortly before the flight, according to Fz.com, 26-year-old passenger Yue Wen Chao posted a picture of his girlfriend and this note, \"See you in Beijing.\"\nIt's hard to believe that not one of the 239 passengers and crew members had the ability, time or wherewithal to get out a single message or that even one not-in-airplane-mode phone or tablet didn\u2019t ping a single cell tower. Yet, as Kagan notes, we have trouble imagining a disconnected world, when that still, by and large, is the reality of international flight. According to a 2013 report by travel data company RouteHappy, just 6.5% of international flights have Wi-Fi. Contrast that with U.S. domestic, where 38% of the flights are ready to connect you to the Internet.\n\u201CIn 2014, we think we\u2019re always connected,\u201D said Kagan, \u201Cit\u2019s the world we live in, but when you\u2019re flying in a plane you\u2019re not connected to that world.\u201D"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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