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A business owner on a long cross country flight misses an important deal because he can't access a cell phone. The person sitting next to him enjoys what little peace and quiet that can be found on an airplane, happy to be away from the phone and Internet for a few hours. That, as travelers board planes by the thousands for the holiday this week, is the debate happening in Washington about whether cell phone use should be allowed on airplanes as it currently is on 20 international carriers servicing four continents and 280 cities. Carl Biersack, executive director the Inflight Passenger Communications Coalition that supports cell phone use on planes, said recently that the duration of a cell phone call on a plane is under one minute 68 percent of the time. His group is worried about a section in the U.S. House of Representatives' Federal Aviation Administration Re-authorization Act of 2009 which would ban all inflight voice communication services and prevent passengers from using their own mobile devices to send and receive calls. No such language exists in the bill on the Senate side. The Federal Communications Commission has banned the inflight use of cell phones since 1991 because of potential interference with ground networks. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration states that there are still unknowns about the radio signals that cell phones give off. There are concerns that these signals, especially in large quantities Advertisementand emitted over a long time, may unintentionally affect aircraft communications, navigation, flight control and electronic equipment. Aviation authorities elsewhere, particularly Europe, have become less convinced that cell signals are dangerous, particularly while at cruising altitude. Air France was the first airline to allow cell use on its flights beginning in April 2008. Biersack said that if Congress remains silent on the issue, it will be up to the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communications Commission to set rules and to each airline in the U.S. to decide if it wants to provide their passengers with the service. "Our duty in the United States is to stay on top of the technology and, if we don't, we will fall behind in the world," said Mary Kirby, senior editor for Flight International magazine, adding that passengers "deserve the right to use technology to make crucial connections with family and friends on a cell phone." Stewart Baker, former first assistant secretary for Policy for the Department of Homeland Security, said new technology allowing cell phone use on planes "is better for the good guys than the bad guys." He said the FBI and Homeland Security can perform wiretaps on cell phone calls in the air and has the ability to cut off service on flights. If cell phones were allowed, he said air marshals could use them to communicate without calling attention to themselves. Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, said that by cutting business travelers off from using their phones while in the air, American companies are put at a competitive disadvantage. "Wireless communication has been critical to growth, survival and competitiveness," she said. "When you are doing more traveling, you have to stay competitive in a 24-7 environment. It is necessary that business owners have a voice on wireless communications when they do travel for their businesses." Groups promoting lifting the ban say conflicts can be solved by promoting phone etiquette, banning phone use at night and allowing the cabin crew to control communications. Indeed, while some U.S. carriers have launched Wi-Fi access on their flights, internal controls on each plane block the use of inflight calling over the Web using Skype or similar software -- not for safety reasons, but because of the customer reaction it might spur. Recent travelers at Salt Lake International Airport expressed little enthusiasm to allow cell use on planes. "Absolutely not," said Kimberly Stansbury of Atlanta who was using her cell phone to text while inside the terminal. "I don't want to hear a person's conversation next to me." Lance Allen of Houston and likes that airplanes offer some privacy. Tammy Skurnik of Denver said sitting next to a person on an airplane chatting on a cell phone would be annoying, just as it would be at a restaurant. "It's OK if I want to make the call, but if you can sit next to me and have a loud conversation, that's not OK," said Ralph Perlberger of New York. "I would rather be patient, use my cell phone when I land, and not be bothered by my neighbors."