You'll just have to wait for tires on the runway, tech junkies

Praise you don't hear everyday - Let's hear it for the FCC, which upheld the ban on cell phones during airplane flights.

(BT lets out a deep breath, the thoughts of a million isolated voices chattering through a commuter flight still firm in his mind.)


I doubt this affect the decision -or even came up in the FCC's deliberations - but airplanes are the only places on the planet where mass amounts of people gather without interruptions from a digitized version of the "Mexican Hat Dance" or some buffoon jibbering about the pizza he ate last night.

People actually talk to each other on planes instead of bolting into an earpiece and never letting up (or catching the basest details of their surroundings). When they won't chat, then it's time for the headphones.

To gauge how bad in-flight cell phones could be, watch the reactions in the airplane cabin to landing. Just as the tires bump tarmac, the passengers are digging for their phones, addicts frantic for the stash briefly denied them. Smokers show more patience.

A week ago, I did it for the first time, if only for a few syllables ("We landed. I'm at the front of the plane. See you curbside in five."). I felt dirty for it.

At least the ever-slippery slope of cell phone use won't open the skies to a web of signals at 30,000 feet. Obviously, it's temptation I don't need.