Originally Posted by MIT_SBM

According to this article one can now make cell phone calls and use mobile broadband while flying in the Philippines, but not during pre-flight and refueling. The article also mentions that other countries are considering relaxing the rules on communication devices in flight.

This might not be so bad in a country, such as the Philippines, where SMS [also known as texting] appears to be predominate over lengthy voice calls. Even still just imagine the din of notification tones, ring tones and loud talkers. The data access would be nice though.