A few days ago my pal Andy Abramson pulled off a victory by making a VoIP call over Aircell to an airborne plane. I wrote about that here. I do believe VoIP is an unstoppable part of the voice services infrastructure. In that post I said "VoIP is IP. If you can run IP, you can use VoIP. That horse has left the barn."

That statement needs to be qualified a little. First, VoIP can indeed be blocked. It takes some technical savvy and knowhow to do it effectively, but it can be done. And the geekiest of VoIP aficionados can find a way around the blocks much of the time.

VoIP can't be blocked from a services standpoint because it's achieved critical mass. It has become an accepted part of the voice services infrastructure. Philosophically, it can't really be blocked for the long term. It clearly cannot be stopped.

Yet there are pockets. There's been some conversation recently as people have noticed that many of the newest Nokia phones no longer contain a VoIP services stack. We all assume that under pressure from the carriers, Nokia has simply, quietly minimized support for VoIP in some phones. Nokia, the king if unlocked, unbranded phones giving in to the carriers? Sure. Those old-school powerhouses are the last bastion of VoIP blocking mentality on the planet. They'll be the last to give in because it erodes their revenue stream. They'll go down fighting all the way.

That doesn't preclude third party development of VoIP tools, and there are several of those solutions around.

Any went on, after the Aircell call, to pursue the issue of VoIP on planes further. He's a frequent flyer, spending more time on planes than most. For him, it's an issue of censorship, not being allowed to talk. Certainly the airlines will spin this a number of different ways, mostly ill-conceived.

Ike Elliot wrote an interesting post that mae me think about it a bit more:

VoIP on a Plane: Cool, Disruptive, or Dangerous?

The news that Andy Abramson successfully used Phweet to skirt the rules prohibiting the use of VoIP on airplanes has certainly created a stir. Reaction of commenters has been wide-ranging:

• Some thought it was a cool demonstration of how hard it is to control what happens on an IP network.
• Some reacted with revulsion at the thought they would have to sit
  next to loud talkers for the duration of the flight. Some called for
  the creation of "talking" and "no talking" seating sections on the
  plane.
• Some even thought that the use of VoIP from a plane would make it easier for terrorists to coordinate plane-based attacks.

I'm not sure about that last one...Internet chat should certainly work about as well as VoIP for a terrorist's purposes.

The more interesting question is whether it is rude to talk on a
phone (or PC or PDA) while sitting next to somebody on an airplane. I
don't know. Suppose you are in a middle seat and you strike up a
conversation with the person to your right. Is that rude to the person
you are talking with? It would be pretty easy for the person on your
right to give clues to you that they would like to end the
conversation, though.

[Read Ike's full post]

Sure, airlines will argue safety. That's an argument that will quickly be dismissed for the poppycock it is. Is ti disruptive? Not technology disruptive, but it's certainly serenity disruptive.

I'm not against phones on planes. I've used the old Airphone systems at dollars per minute. I'm not against cell phones when we're on the tarmac either. But I'm not terribly keen on the idea of people all around me Skyping with the same rudeness they talk in restaurants, the airport waiting area, buses, trains, the grocery store, and even the public restroom when we're on a plane together.

If airlines had a conference room, work room, or isolated area so all these chatterboxes could go annoy one another and leave me in peace, I wouldn't mind. But there's something to be said for those who don't want to listen to all their rude neighbors conversations while flying. I prefer to read. Or sleep.

Note: If you're the noisy one next to me on a flight, I'm the guy who will slyly short your headset cord when you go to the bathroom so I don't have to listen to you.

There's an issue of manners that's a bigger issue than the technology issue. We've become a society where there's an unspoken rule. If you have a cell phone in you're ear, you're important. You get to talk louder than everyone around you, and we should all be sensitive to the important business you're doing. I don't buy it. If you're talking on a cell phone in a loud voice in a crowd, you're simply rude. If you ask questions loudly of the person on the phone, I'll answer you. Repeatedly. I'll embarrass you and annoy you. I'll try to make you go away. Sometimes you do.

What do you think about our cell phone manners in the world today? And how do you think we should handle voice calls on airplanes? I'm not an especially big fan at this point.