We're spared for now

I posted about this issue previously, and I'm glad to see that, at least for now, we'll be spared the annoyance of strangers chatting away for hours into their cell phones while sitting next to us during a flight:

The Federal Communications Commission will give up on the idea of allowing cellphone use on airplanes, the chairman said, because it was not clear whether the network on the ground could handle the calls.

While the chairman, Kevin Martin, cited a technical reason on Thursday, thousands of air passengers have written to the FCC, urging rejection of the proposal because of the potential for irritating passengers.
[...]
The problem cited by Martin did not have to do with flight safety or the mood in the cabin, but a problem raised by the cellphone industry.

The system is designed for phones to communicate with a single cell tower at a time. But a cellphone that is several miles in the air can contact many towers at once, tying up circuits in all of them, the industry argued.

So they found a technical issue to reject the proposal, which is fine by me, as long as the end result is the same. Social concerns are, however, a known issue:

But he also alluded to the social problem. "From an in-flight perspective, there is some talk of, 'O.K., maybe cellphone conversations would drive people crazy,'" he said.

As for the old adage that if you use your cell phone during flight you might bring down the plane:

The issue for aviation safety is that planes navigate by way of faint radio signals from the ground and from satellites.

These are on frequencies different from the ones authorized for cellphone use, but safety experts worry that any electronic equipment might emit signals at a frequency that would drown out the navigation signals.

So there could be problems, but economics, followed by social considerations, are the basis for the current decision.

Airlines are gonna go ahead with implementing web services on board, but for now cell phones are still gonna be off-limits.

And that's good, if you ask me.