Jared W. Smith

Just a friendly reminder to our Charleston-based readers of The Blog: Brace yourselves. It’s going to be, comparatively speaking to the last few days, FREAKING COLD tomorrow and for the next several days. We’ll be going from a high of about 85 or so to a crisp, cool 66, with lows lucky to stay in the 50s. I just don’t want any of you — myself included — going outside in shorts and a t-shirt and wondering what happened. :)

So the FCC has decided to take the common sense route and keep the ban on airborne cell phone calls in place. This is a Good Thing. In its ruling, FCC cites the possibility of causing problems with cell networks on the ground. Considering the number of handoffs between towers that would be required by a cellphone user going 590 MPH, I can see why this is a concern.

I think it’s great that passengers won’t have to worry about the inevitable shouting on the cell phone over the roar of the engines. It’s bad enough that people already broadcast their cell phone conversations to half the block when they’re on the ground; imagine the annoyance they’d be on an aircraft. We already have crying babies to deal with (who I will forgive; they’ve got no idea what’s going on) — we don’t need ridiculously loud phone calls on the plane in addition to all of it. I could only imagine the beating one would take if they were shouting for the duration of a four hour flight — I’m sure it would make the tackle of, say, Richard Reid (the shoe-bomber) by passengers look docile.