Skift Take
There are so few comments on the FCC site in favor of in-flight phone calls that it is obvious that supporters have been too busy conducting very important business and otherwise shooting the breeze on their smartphones to actually weigh in. Hold on.
Vociferous opposition to the FCC's proposal to allow in-flight phone calls has been pouring in, scrawled on a Christmas card, drafted by attorneys on their law firms' stationery, and replete with horrific anecdotes about overheard mobile calls revealing just Too Much Information.
The avalanche of comments has been coming in even though the official FCC comment period hadn't even begun yet as of this writing. Once the ruling-making is published in the Federal Register, then an initial 30-day comment period will commence.
Proponents who favor in-flight phone calls point out the convenience, and argue calls would be very limited in duration. But an examination of the comments on the FCC site from those people opposed to allowing in-flight phone calls finds some sensible arguments.
And some people are pushing their viewpoints on the subject in a variety of interesting, colorful and entertaining ways.
There is, for example, one person telling the FCC that in-flight phone calls should be banned because of "Alec Baldwin," who was kicked off an American Airlines flight in 2011 for refusing to stop playing Words With Friends on his iPhone, although no phone calls were involved.
Another commenter has no immediately apparent position on Alec Baldwin, but has nightmares of a smartphone-wielding Chatty Cathy, although the relevant iconic doll is misspelled as "Kathy."
Whatever: Cathy talked a lot.
One objector wants to ban phone calls on planes because people like him are "loud" and they proj
