[pdelbarba]

There are no FAA regulations regarding phones/electronic devices other than a blanket rule that you can only enable them with the permission of the captain. The rules regarding cellphone use on planes is from the FCC. They don't want tubes full of transceivers broadcasting at max power (phones ramp up power to search for towers where there are none) high above the earth where they can broadcast over the greatest physical area. At 30k+ft this is not a huge concern (too high for a noticeable increase in the noise floor) but in terminal areas they could conceivably tie up bandwidth on every tower in the city. Whether this is a concern with modern cell towers is up for debate however.

[ryacko]

This doesn't explain cell site simulators well though, they are at the perfect altitude and power rating to cause interference.

[pdelbarba]

I don't really understand. Do you mean cell site simulators (IMSI catchers?) interfering with aircraft or flying the simulators on aircraft to broaden their reach?

In the latter case, they would (I'm assuming) be flown with proper high gain directional antennas instead of tiny antennas mostly hidden inside a metal tube that attenuates most of their signal

[yuhong]

AFAIK the rules affects only analog cell phone usage.