It’s been a big month in the world of airline travel.

At the beginning of November, after years of requiring passengers to “turn off all electronic devices” during take-offs and landings, the Federal Aviation Administration  finally began to relax its policies on the matter. For years, the FAA worried that signals from electronic devices would cause interference and render communications between the cockpit and the control tower dangerously spotty.

Improved technologies and stronger signals have lightened the FAA’s worries about interference. However, while passengers will now be able to enjoy the use of their tablets and MP3 players during all moments of a flight, the Federal Communications Commission has still remained hesitant about allowing free use of cellphones for airborne individuals. After all, the cabin of a passenger jet is a compact area, and someone having a loud phone conversation could easily prove to be a big annoyance for many other passengers.

Still, the FCC is considering a change in its cellphone policies to go along with the loosened technology restrictions of airplane travel. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the FCC may even have plans to propose a lift of a long-held ban on in-flight calls and data use.

Of course, passengers wouldn’t simply be able to continue on a phone conversation from the moment they boarded the plane to the moment it arrived at the destination gate. The FCC would still maintain its enforcement of the “no cellphone use” rule during take-offs, landings, and taxiing – the parts of airline travel where interference would be most likely to cause trouble. However, the FCC’s amended rules would allow for calls, texts, and instances of cellphone data after the plane cleared a 10,000 feet minimum.

The FCC isn’t the ultimate authority on whether or not passengers use phones aboard airplanes, however. Thus far, the commission’s rules have left airlines with little to worry about in terms of cellphones and other communication devices on planes. A rule change would require airlines to weigh the pros and cons of cellphone use on planes in order to determine whether allowing calls on board would improve or damage passenger experience.

Airlines which desire to allow cellphone use on their planes will also have to make an investment in equipment that will make it possible for passengers’ phones to communicate with on-the-ground cell towers. A phone at 30,000 feet would not be able to use a cell signal in the same way that it would on the ground.