The FAA is maintaining its ban against in-flight use of wireless devices such as cellphones, regardless of the FCC’s recent proposal to allow such usage. Some of you might disagree, but no regrets here: an eight-hour cross-country flight is bad enough with wailing babies and stuffy air; adjacent passengers with too much time on their hands yapping away on their cellphones might just send me over the brink. Incessant IMing over WiFi, however, I can live with. As long as the sound is off. (Note that the FAA’s decision does not affect WiFi radios on planes with Boeing Connexion, a wireless broadband service available on some flights from ANA, JAL, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, and Singapore Airlines.)
(Via Gizmodo)

Agreed! People generally don’t talk into cellphones, they yell into them. A flight full of people talking on their cellphones would be a nightmare. Silent SMS text messages wouldn’t be a bother, but that would involve a cellphone re-design that would automatically turn off the cellphone speaker and microphone during a flight. In other words inside a plane you could only use your cellphone to text. Another possibility would be to have a silent and a yucking section on a plane… put the cellphone talkers in the back, where the engine noise is loudest, errect a nice soundproof barrier somewhere in the middle of the plane and let them talk/yell as much as they want. My ears are being assaulted enough as it is. I certainly don’t want the potential of hundreds of people yelling into their phones. I will fly any carrier that does not allow cellphones.

On the other hand THESE might work. Or maybe I could be allowed to wear a full-face helmet?