Originally Posted by rschendel
This is part conjecture on my part, a single cell phone or a few turned on are not really a problem, but what about 50 or 100 or more on large jets? I also think the "turn off all electronic devices" before takeoff and landing has more to do with keeping people focused on responding to an emergency if one should occur -- as opposed to any potential interference issues.
A test was done a couple of months ago on AA (IIRC) in cooperation with Qualcomm and a carrier (was it Sprint?). There were no problems whatsoever with phones on during the flight, and my guess is that we will see this being allowed in the near future.
Just think about how many cell phones are left on during flight (forgotten or otherwise) and compare that with the number of aircraft that have crashed because of it.