Plane Cabin as a Public Phone Booth

In-flight cellphone proposal hits static

Gayle James doesn't want the Federal Communications Commission to lift its in-flight ban on cellphones in airplanes, and here's why:

"I was seated next to a very loud man who was explaining his next porn movie on his cellphone," wrote James, of Shelton, Wash. ''Everyone on that plane was subjected to his explicit blabbering. Should cell use during flight be allowed, we had all better be prepared for a whole lot of air rage going on."

James's comments echo how many people -- from passengers to pilots -- feel about the FCC's proposal to allow the use of cellphones during flights. For more than a decade, the commission and the Federal Aviation Administration have barred in-flight use of cellphones over fears about interference with cellphone towers on the ground and aircraft navigational and communications equipment.

More than 7,700 individuals, companies, and associations filed written comments with the FCC after it proposed lifting the ban last December. A Globe review of roughly 50 such comments, as well as interviews with passengers, found that the public is fervently against the measure.

Cell phones make rude people ruder.

You know those last few moments before the plane takes off? While the cell phone users are busy shouting into their phones at their partners, co-workers, assistants, secretaries, husbands, wives, children? Imagine an entire two hour flight at such a decibel level.

Why do people shout into their cell phones? It's like listening to Dr. Watson using the first phone. Do you think the voice in your ear is coming in so clearly because the other person is talking loudly? No, silly, it's the technology. You can speak in a normal voice and be heard on the other end.

And isn't it creepy to see someone coming towards you on the street, slightly hunched over, and suddenly the person speaks, as though to you? You begin looking for a cop, or the guys in the white jackets, until you realize there's a cord trailing from the bug in his ear, and he's talking to someone on the phone.

Cell phones are a fixture of modern life, though. I was listening to a book on tape the other day, a murder mystery involving lawyers. It was written in 1999. People kept getting into scrapes where they needed help, or to tell someone where they were. They would call the home phone and get no answer, or the machine. None of these characters seemed to have a cell phone. At various intense times in the narrative I would find myself shouting, "Call her on the cell phone, dummy!" A 6-year old book, already hopelessly outdated.

I hope the cell phone ban on planes stays in place, though, for my peace of mind.