AP-GfK poll: strong opposition to in-flight calls
Source: AP-Excite
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
WASHINGTON (AP) - As federal regulators consider removing a decades-old prohibition on making phone calls on planes, a majority of Americans who fly oppose such a change, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.
The Federal Communications Commission will officially start the debate Thursday, holding the first of several meetings to review the agency's 22-year-old ban. New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has called the current rules "outdated and restrictive."
Technology has advanced to the point where in-flight calls - relayed first through a special system on planes - won't overload cell towers on the ground. As a result, Wheeler has said, there's no reason the government should prohibit in-flight calls. The FCC proposal comes weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on using personal electronic devices such as iPads and Kindles below 10,000 feet, saying they don't interfere with cockpit instruments.
Just because technology has advanced, it doesn't mean that etiquette has. Many fliers fear their fellow passengers will subject them to long-winded conversations impossible to avoid at 35,000 feet.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131211/DAAKB5NG0.html
In this Oct. 29, 2012, file photo, a traveler on Delta Airlines waits for her flight in Detroit. As federal regulators consider removing a decades-old prohibition on making phone calls on planes, a majority of air travelers oppose such a change, a new Associated Press poll finds on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
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[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Let passengers communicate electronically via text messages, email, instant messaging, etc, but for love of all that's holy and survival of in-flight sanity, please, please, please do not unleash audible telephone conversations on in-flight passengers!
Can you imagine being trapped in a cigar tube with multiple, inescapable phone conversations going on around you? Gaaaaaaaah! 
