In regards to the satellite phone question...
The main danger with wireless transmissions is in the take-off/approach phases of flight. That is due to the exactness required when making instrument approaches and departure patterns so they don't run into anything. Being off by 100 feet on an ILS (instrument landing system) approach could put the airplane down short of the runway or off to the sides (even hitting another aircraft on a taxiway). There have been close calls due to cell phones being used during landing, namely a Northwest DC-10 that came out of the clouds in finals to MSP and discovered it was lined up with the grass instead of the numbers on the runway. Cell phone use is blamed in the crash of a Crossair SF-340 (killed about a dozen people) recently because on an instrument approach the interference with navigation equipment put the aircraft into the side of a hill.
However at altitude, being off by a small amount is allowable. This is a nonissue with things like the wireless phones you mentioned because they know the level of interference it causes and can compensate for it.
Even when I go to pilot my Cessna, I know based on data provided how much magnetic interference is caused by other electronic equipment in the aircraft and can compensate for it on heading calculations (magnetic variation and deviation, also caused by the difference between true and magnetic north). When a passenger uses their own cell phone or radio, the aircrafts instruments are not calibrated against that kind of interference and become even more inaccurate.
------------------
Jason Seiple
OMA