I believe that this is mostly about big business.
Re: FCC says no to mobile calls on airplanes.
Currently they can charge you an arm and a leg for using their phone service. The technical mumbo jumbo about interfering with their terrestrial networks is a poor attempt at best to explain why the carriers would not want this option available. They also are probably afraid of having to support it in the future, meaning, if you are allowed to make calls in flight, consumers will expect to be able to make calls in flight. Carriers whose service does not do so, and do so well, would face negative public opinion.
I agree that I would not want someone yapping on their phone next to me for a whole flight, but I don't like screaming kids, or snoring passengers, or drunk traveling salesmen either. Can't ban them.
If you wanted, you could limit cell phone calls to 15 minutes before landing so that people could coordinate their rides, or pickup options, or any other post-flight details, helping to reduce the amount of congestion at the airport with waiting cars and families. This would also limit the amount of "tower hopping" by the cell phone that occurs.
But hey, what do I know?
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Not big biz, but that too...
Actually the "excuse" about terrestrial network interference is the real reason for not allowing cellphones on planes. For years the official stance was that it may cause interference with onboard avionics, but that's really nonsense.
The simple truth is that cellular networks are designed for clients (i.e. cellphones) that are relatively stationary - sitting, walking, or at most driving a car or riding a train. These estimates were taken into account in designing the software that allows a cellphone to move from one cell to another without disruption.
If cellphone usage is allowed on planes, you suddenly have potentially a lot (up to a hundred or more) cellphones moving very fast together from cell to cell. This is bound to wreak havoc with the cellular network.
The solution to this problem, and simultaneously to the big business problem (...) is to install a micro-cell on board the plane, so that all cellphones on board will be using this (relatively to them) stationary cell, which will communicate with the terrestrial network via a specialized link (like the one servicing the on-board phones today). The open problem then is how to make sure all phones use this cell and not the terrestrial ones, as some frugal smart-alecs are sure to direct their phones to use their "home" network and not the "roaming" one on the plane.