Everyone seems to forget that handsets are built into the armrests of many long haul a/c already, and so phones in the cabins will not be new, just a different method. The charge will certainly be the regulator of use!
On the amusing side (or not), when the local network at the destination takes over, there will be up to 550 phones all beeping at the same time receiving the welcome message text from the new network!
If you want your own personal privacy, you could always keep your phone switched off. Interesting that someone mentioned smoking in an earlier post as I suspect the airlines attitude to noise might be to create phone and non phone zones in an aircraft.
Time will tell.