Condoning or condamning? From the rest of your post I guess the latter. I agree with you that the issue is loud conversation and (to be honest, even more importantly) lack of consideration for others. I guess the 'technical' issue with Skype is that while in your case, you use it from your mobile phone and thus can use it very much as you would any other phone conversation, I have had issues (for some totally random reason, particularly at FRA in the lounge used by DL) with people Skyping from their laptop, without any headset, just playing the sound as loud as they could make it and shouting back into their computer. This being said, while I think it is a technical issue to take into account, I should add that I don't believe AF are blocking skype on free lounges because of a fear that this will disturb people but simply to negotiate their Orange bill down!

I guess the whole difficulty is one of theory and practice. In theory, as I mentioned, the only 'real' problem is people who 'invade' others with sound wherever and however it comes from and show a total lack of respect/consideration for anyone around them. In effect, if people show respect and consideration (and moderation) they could use whatever they want as far as I'm concerned. The problem is that many people don't and that makes any solution that we can envisage in practice (ranging from allowing everything and letting people who are bothered 'fight' loud people all the way to a complete ban on phones) partly impractical and partly unfair, and the truth is that neither I nor - I believe anyone else - has a convincing solution (well, in my dreams I have one - install a little device in every noise-associated instrument from mobile phones to cars which would safely blow the instrument off whenever a certain decibel level is passed. I can't even tell you how many times I have thought of how wonderful it would be if a motorbike passing on the street with trafficked ultra-noisy engine could be equipped ).

All I can say is that on several occasions, I have witnessed scenes relating to phone or communication noise in lounges leading to an escalation of tension and on one occasion to actual violence. More often, it has been people telling each other off ('do you realise that the whole lounge is listening to your conversation?') or insulting each other. The notion that everyone should be punished by forbidding phones or anything else sounds unfair. The notion that people will self-discipline or that lounge dragons will enforce a 'reasonable noise' policy is unrealistic and contradicted by facts on a daily basis. That's why I think that ultimately dividing lounges between 'quiet' and 'connected' areas would be the best solution and feasible in larger lounges. In the 'quiet area', people would be requested not to use phones, skype, listen to music, or have loud conversations. In the connected areas, phones and skype would be allowed as would conversations. I genuinely think that this would be a really big improvement for everyone!

It is also because I am concerned about people not being willing to self-discipline why I am vastly opposed to allowing any form of voice communication during flights. Trains, buses and underground are here to prove us that people don't self restrain, and in a confined space from which one cannot escape and may be stuck for a long time like a plane, I think that the airline which allows this should take responsibility for any ensuing air rage incident of which they would be the objective accomplices. As for me, I wouldn't wait to see it happen and as long as not all airlines follow suite, I would gladly boycott the airlines in question.