FCC Gets Pushback over Possibly Allowing Cellphone Calls on Flights

Who doesn't want to listen to their fellow passengers' personal lives?

Air travel may get a lot chattier with a new federal proposal to allow cellphone calls on airplanes.

The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that it will consider rules that would allow air travelers to make calls and use their cellular data plans once a plane reaches 10,000 feet. Restrictions would remain for takeoffs and landings.

The proposal, which will be raised at the commission's meeting next month, has the backing of the agency's newly appointed chairman. But the idea is bound to be controversial. Within hours of the announcement, consumers flooded the agency with protests.

One FCC commissioner received hundreds of e-mails complaining that the move would lead to unbearable noise pollution, an aide said. Passengers are already crammed into smaller seats and tighter rows, and being forced to listen to one another's calls would be yet another indignity, they wrote.