But, it requires a continuous link from the "tower" in the plane to a
> ground station through which calls are routed.
> Technically, I think the system is a good idea and it solves pretty
> much all of the technical issues that make cell phone use in planes a
> bad idea. Socially, I think it's terrible and the only good thing
> about being on an airliner is being free of people yammering on
> cellphones. But technical solutions to social problems never work.
But this situation would at least hold the possibility of a compromise solution in which the "tower" is only turned on for, say, 30 minutes out of every 4 hours, or turned off during sleeping periods, or . . .
Although if the airline is deriving revenue from the tower through a surcharge on calls made through it, as seems likely, even that is probably too much to hope for.
How about a couple of "phone-booth" seats back by the lavatories, with a per-minute use charge? (which could in fact be collected automatically by a surcharge that's not paid on the spot, but goes on the caller or callee's phone bill for the call)