Originally Posted by drbond
The reason the FCC prohibits cell phone use on aircraft is due to safety. In order for cell phone use to be permitted by current government standards (FCC regulations) the FCC must have certification that the cell phone cannot interfere with any aircraft instruments. In order for this certification to occur every possible cellular phone manufactured in the past and currently would have to be tested against ALL aircraft instruments and be certified with a clean bill of health.
I don't think this is quite accurate. Many electronic device (e.g. laptops, DVD players, iPods, etc.) are allowed on board although certainly not all (if any) of them have been tested for interference with on-board systems. If the FCC decides to allow cell phone use in-flight, the FAA would probably allow testing phones based on the frequency bands they use, rather than having to test every model individually. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some sort of "FAA-approved" logo so that FA's, and for that matter, passengers, don't have to be experts in all the different technologies to know whether a particular device is safe or not.