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BuckBackHome
Wolverine is largest member of weasel family
I'd love to jam all cell phones and people who do not know how to use them properly. I'm not referring to electronic jamming either.
I used to have a department head who would take cell phone calls during staff meetings. I am still amazed the boss never told him to turn the damn thing off.
I used to have a department head who would take cell phone calls during staff meetings. I am still amazed the boss never told him to turn the damn thing off.
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coxew
Heisman
This topic was discussed on a local talk radio show recently. I couldn't believe how many people were opposed. The main reason...what if my kids get hurt and the babysitter needs to get a hold of me? IMO, if it's that important to you that the babysitter is able to call you 100% of the time on your night out, you don't need to be going out.
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Taosman
Your Cousin In New Mexxico
<TABLE height=110 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=525 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=caption vAlign=top width=133 height=196><TABLE height=197 width=124><TBODY><TR><TD height=140>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption height=15>(Illustration by Monica Seaberry)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=caption vAlign=top width=384 height=196>
THE CYBERSPACE AND TECHNOLOGY BEAT
Cell Phone Jammers, Illegal in U.S., Can Create Silent Zones
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]By MARGIE WYLIE
c.2000 Newhouse News [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Service[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The incessant ringing was bad enough, but when patrons of the Whiteley Shopping Centre's cinema in London began answering their cellular telephones mid-movie -- shouting to be heard above the dialogue -- Nasser Ahmadi knew something had to give.
"Some people were getting so angry that they were leaving the cinema," said Ahmadi, a consultant to Universal Cinemas International, which operates the multiscreen movie house. "People were asking why we didn't do something about it."
Across the globe, cell phones disturb plays, concerts and films. Phones ring out during funerals and weddings. They bleep and buzz in trains, restaurants and bathrooms. Cell-phone-free zones, polite requests, even icy glares can't seem to stop the ringing and consequent jabbering.
But Ahmadi found something that does: a cellular telephone jammer.
Five months ago, he installed the C-Guard cellular telephone firewall and complaints stopped. Made by an Israeli company called NetLine, the C-Guard is one of a handful of cell phone jammers commercially available today.
But don't go looking for one at your neighborhood electronics store.
"The technology is illegal in the U.S. and it's our position that it should be," said Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, based in Washington, D.C.
Within their operating radius, jammers prevent wireless phones from contacting a cellular radio tower. The affected phone behaves as it would any place where reception is too poor to carry a call.
Users "don't complain because they don't know what's going on," Ahmadi said. "There are lots of places where there are blackouts, anyway. They think it's the construction of the building, so they come out in the foyer to make their phone calls."
"It's very Machiavellian but perfectly harmless," said Jonathan Lemel, managing director for Special Electronic Security Products, U.K. Ltd. of Manchester, England, which manufactures jammers.
Not everyone agrees. The devices are banned in most industrialized countries, which don't take kindly to disruption of licensed radio services.
"Obviously, spectrum is licensed by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and purchased by broadcasters of all kind to transmit information," said Larson, the cellular industry spokesman. "And those pieces of spectrum become the property of those using them for the length of the licenses. So using a jammer is analogous to taking someone else's property."
Gil Israeli, NetLine's CEO, counters that if anything's being stolen, it's the peace and quiet of those of us forced to endure loud cell phone conversations.
Regulators have no beef with people installing expensive metal shielding around rooms to block cell phone usage, Israeli observed. "Our only argument with the FCC is whether people should be allowed to defend their space actively as well as passively, using an inexpensive device," he said.
Richard DiSabatini, director of Intelligence Support Group, Ltd., a jammer maker based in China Lake, Calif., agreed. "This is a whole gray area," he said. "If you were in my home and I didn't want you using your cell phone, why shouldn't I have the right to block you?"
DiSabatini's firm does not advertise its jammers. It sells them only for export, to the military, or to those law enforcement agencies exempted from FCC rules, he said.
At its simplest, jamming any radio device involves transmitting a signal on the same frequency and at high enough power that the two signals collide and cancel each other out. The effect is similar to what happens when you drop two pebbles in still water and rings of waves radiate out from them. Where the rings meet, the water becomes smooth.
Cellular telephones, however, are more challenging to jam than most radio transmissions. Different cellular systems operate over a wide range of frequencies. Within those frequencies, any single phone may "spectrum hop" to find a band free of interference. Plus, phones can notch up their power to try to overcome interference.
Cell phone jammers have to be sophisticated enough to squelch phone signals without interfering with other devices, from garage door openers to medical equipment. In addition, they must operate at power levels high enough to overcome cell phone signals, but not so high that the jamming effect leaks outside the intended coverage area.
In fact, leakage is a key reason the FCC and other regulators refuse to license jammers, Israeli said. But if governments set specific rules for exactly how much leakage could be tolerated, he said, NetLine could meet them.
"You don't expect someone in an apartment complex not to use his TV. We accept that some noise will come from our neighbors, but we have some idea of what is a reasonable standard," Israeli said.
To the cell phone industry, however, leakage isn't the only problem. Larson noted that more than 118,000 emergency calls are made each day from cell phones. And what if a doctor in a theater misses an emergency call because of a jammer?
Surreptitiously cutting off cellular telephone access is like snipping off the burning tip of a cigarette because you object to secondhand smoke, jammer foes say. "The answer is etiquette, education, making sure people are using their cell phones in ways that don't invade other people's space," Larson said.
Larson's association and many of its member companies, including cell phone manufacturer Nokia and service provider U.S. Cellular, are pouring money into public education campaigns to encourage cell phone users to be more considerate.
The FCC has fielded enough queries about the legality of cell phone jammers that it issued a notice last year. In it, the agency warns that jammers violate federal laws that broadly prohibit interfering with licensed radio spectrum. Owning, manufacturing, marketing, offering for sale or operating a cell phone jammer is punishable by an $11,000 fine and up to a year in prison for each offense, the notice states.
Stern warnings to the contrary, the agency has never seized a single jammer or prosecuted an operator to the best of his knowledge, said Richard Welch, associate chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau.
"We haven't taken any actions because nobody has complained," Welch said, adding that it was possible jammer users were simply flying under the FCC's radar.
Lemel agreed. When a cell phone doesn't work, he said, "the first thing you think isn't, `I'm being jammed."'
It's not because they're not in use, if sales are any indicator. Lemel says the United States is his firm's biggest market for cell phone blockers. And NetLine, Israeli says, also sells many devices in the States, though Europe is its largest market.
THE CYBERSPACE AND TECHNOLOGY BEAT
Cell Phone Jammers, Illegal in U.S., Can Create Silent Zones
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]By MARGIE WYLIE
c.2000 Newhouse News [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Service[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The incessant ringing was bad enough, but when patrons of the Whiteley Shopping Centre's cinema in London began answering their cellular telephones mid-movie -- shouting to be heard above the dialogue -- Nasser Ahmadi knew something had to give.
"Some people were getting so angry that they were leaving the cinema," said Ahmadi, a consultant to Universal Cinemas International, which operates the multiscreen movie house. "People were asking why we didn't do something about it."
Across the globe, cell phones disturb plays, concerts and films. Phones ring out during funerals and weddings. They bleep and buzz in trains, restaurants and bathrooms. Cell-phone-free zones, polite requests, even icy glares can't seem to stop the ringing and consequent jabbering.
But Ahmadi found something that does: a cellular telephone jammer.
Five months ago, he installed the C-Guard cellular telephone firewall and complaints stopped. Made by an Israeli company called NetLine, the C-Guard is one of a handful of cell phone jammers commercially available today.
But don't go looking for one at your neighborhood electronics store.
"The technology is illegal in the U.S. and it's our position that it should be," said Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, based in Washington, D.C.
Within their operating radius, jammers prevent wireless phones from contacting a cellular radio tower. The affected phone behaves as it would any place where reception is too poor to carry a call.
Users "don't complain because they don't know what's going on," Ahmadi said. "There are lots of places where there are blackouts, anyway. They think it's the construction of the building, so they come out in the foyer to make their phone calls."
"It's very Machiavellian but perfectly harmless," said Jonathan Lemel, managing director for Special Electronic Security Products, U.K. Ltd. of Manchester, England, which manufactures jammers.
Not everyone agrees. The devices are banned in most industrialized countries, which don't take kindly to disruption of licensed radio services.
"Obviously, spectrum is licensed by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and purchased by broadcasters of all kind to transmit information," said Larson, the cellular industry spokesman. "And those pieces of spectrum become the property of those using them for the length of the licenses. So using a jammer is analogous to taking someone else's property."
Gil Israeli, NetLine's CEO, counters that if anything's being stolen, it's the peace and quiet of those of us forced to endure loud cell phone conversations.
Regulators have no beef with people installing expensive metal shielding around rooms to block cell phone usage, Israeli observed. "Our only argument with the FCC is whether people should be allowed to defend their space actively as well as passively, using an inexpensive device," he said.
Richard DiSabatini, director of Intelligence Support Group, Ltd., a jammer maker based in China Lake, Calif., agreed. "This is a whole gray area," he said. "If you were in my home and I didn't want you using your cell phone, why shouldn't I have the right to block you?"
DiSabatini's firm does not advertise its jammers. It sells them only for export, to the military, or to those law enforcement agencies exempted from FCC rules, he said.
At its simplest, jamming any radio device involves transmitting a signal on the same frequency and at high enough power that the two signals collide and cancel each other out. The effect is similar to what happens when you drop two pebbles in still water and rings of waves radiate out from them. Where the rings meet, the water becomes smooth.
Cellular telephones, however, are more challenging to jam than most radio transmissions. Different cellular systems operate over a wide range of frequencies. Within those frequencies, any single phone may "spectrum hop" to find a band free of interference. Plus, phones can notch up their power to try to overcome interference.
Cell phone jammers have to be sophisticated enough to squelch phone signals without interfering with other devices, from garage door openers to medical equipment. In addition, they must operate at power levels high enough to overcome cell phone signals, but not so high that the jamming effect leaks outside the intended coverage area.
In fact, leakage is a key reason the FCC and other regulators refuse to license jammers, Israeli said. But if governments set specific rules for exactly how much leakage could be tolerated, he said, NetLine could meet them.
"You don't expect someone in an apartment complex not to use his TV. We accept that some noise will come from our neighbors, but we have some idea of what is a reasonable standard," Israeli said.
To the cell phone industry, however, leakage isn't the only problem. Larson noted that more than 118,000 emergency calls are made each day from cell phones. And what if a doctor in a theater misses an emergency call because of a jammer?
Surreptitiously cutting off cellular telephone access is like snipping off the burning tip of a cigarette because you object to secondhand smoke, jammer foes say. "The answer is etiquette, education, making sure people are using their cell phones in ways that don't invade other people's space," Larson said.
Larson's association and many of its member companies, including cell phone manufacturer Nokia and service provider U.S. Cellular, are pouring money into public education campaigns to encourage cell phone users to be more considerate.
The FCC has fielded enough queries about the legality of cell phone jammers that it issued a notice last year. In it, the agency warns that jammers violate federal laws that broadly prohibit interfering with licensed radio spectrum. Owning, manufacturing, marketing, offering for sale or operating a cell phone jammer is punishable by an $11,000 fine and up to a year in prison for each offense, the notice states.
Stern warnings to the contrary, the agency has never seized a single jammer or prosecuted an operator to the best of his knowledge, said Richard Welch, associate chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau.
"We haven't taken any actions because nobody has complained," Welch said, adding that it was possible jammer users were simply flying under the FCC's radar.
Lemel agreed. When a cell phone doesn't work, he said, "the first thing you think isn't, `I'm being jammed."'
It's not because they're not in use, if sales are any indicator. Lemel says the United States is his firm's biggest market for cell phone blockers. And NetLine, Israeli says, also sells many devices in the States, though Europe is its largest market.
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BuckBackHome
Wolverine is largest member of weasel family
Damn, I never thought of that. What the hell did we do even ten years ago before the proliferation of cell phones? Would a babysitter be resourceful enough to call a theater, let them know the movie the parents were in and the theater would stop the movie to get the parents because of an emergency?
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cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
And right after they do theatres I hope they go on to restaurants and moving cars.
I had a great one yesterday that topped all my charts, woman in SUV, on cell, smoking cigarette, and tweezing an eye brow. All that was missing was the "BABY ON BOARD" caution sign.
Question to our 'on board' lawyers: If the person driving in front of you is talking on a cell phone and not keeping up with traffic, then floors it to go through a yellow light that turns red for you, do you have a right to shoot that person?
I had a great one yesterday that topped all my charts, woman in SUV, on cell, smoking cigarette, and tweezing an eye brow. All that was missing was the "BABY ON BOARD" caution sign.
Question to our 'on board' lawyers: If the person driving in front of you is talking on a cell phone and not keeping up with traffic, then floors it to go through a yellow light that turns red for you, do you have a right to shoot that person?
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LoKyBuckeye
I give up. This board is too hard to understand.
that senario is worse today... we used to run into that all the time when I was a General Manager in that industry. It was common that a babysitter needed to get a hold of the parents but they don't know what movie they are in. 99% of theatres don't a PA system that goes into the auditoriums. The last theatre I ran was 16 screens... so are you suppose to stop 16 movies in order to find the parent? Or they may know which movie they are in but that movie is playing on 4 screens at 4 different times..... I don't think there is an answer for this problem.BuckinMichigan said:
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martinss01
blissfully stupid
im on call 1 week out of every 3. on the weeks im on call i still go out, but i don't go anywhere i can't leave immediately. i don't go to places that are overly noisey and i don't go to places that require complete silence from the audience. i don't expect the rest of the world to revolve around me. others apparently feel differently.
to the parents who think they can't possibly shut their cell phone off for 2 hours because of their children. as i am not a parent, can any of you who parents are give me a reason why it would be acceptable for the babysitter to interupt a movie? the way i see it is this, any situation that can't sit for 2 hours should be called into 911, not you. second, if you don't trust the babysitter to handle the call to 911, maybe they shouldn't be left alone with your children...?
cincibuck, i disagree with you on restaurants. personally i feel its a given that people will talk to others in a restaurant. if they happen to be talking to someone on a cell phone as apposed to the seat next to them... whats the difference?
to the parents who think they can't possibly shut their cell phone off for 2 hours because of their children. as i am not a parent, can any of you who parents are give me a reason why it would be acceptable for the babysitter to interupt a movie? the way i see it is this, any situation that can't sit for 2 hours should be called into 911, not you. second, if you don't trust the babysitter to handle the call to 911, maybe they shouldn't be left alone with your children...?
cincibuck, i disagree with you on restaurants. personally i feel its a given that people will talk to others in a restaurant. if they happen to be talking to someone on a cell phone as apposed to the seat next to them... whats the difference?
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tibor75
Banned
Why eliminate all phone reception just because there are idiots who can't turn on the silent alarm on their phone?
I agree that jamming the phones is a bad idea. If anything it would hurt attendance, not help.
Of all the things i hate about movies - the high ticket prices, paying for parking at certain locations, the fact that DVDs allow you to watch close to the same experience at home - cell phone calls isn't even close to the top. I can't remember the last time I heard somebody talking on the phone during the movie. People are more likely to talk to each other than on a phone.
I agree that jamming the phones is a bad idea. If anything it would hurt attendance, not help.
Of all the things i hate about movies - the high ticket prices, paying for parking at certain locations, the fact that DVDs allow you to watch close to the same experience at home - cell phone calls isn't even close to the top. I can't remember the last time I heard somebody talking on the phone during the movie. People are more likely to talk to each other than on a phone.
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methomps
an imbecility, a stupidity without name
Just hire more ushers. As tibor pointed out, cell phone use isn't the only problem. There isn't a jammer that stops people behind you from talking (damn those annoying groups of teenage girls).
Or maybe movie theatres should just realize that their current business plan is dying out. Time to come up with something new.
Or maybe movie theatres should just realize that their current business plan is dying out. Time to come up with something new.
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I'm opposed to this, and nobody is more annoyed by people talking on cells in the theater then me. It just has too much potential to create a bad-domino effect in my opinoin.
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MightbeaBuck
with hat in hand
Walls and ceiling can be made "radio proof". It has an intitial cost much higher than, for example, jamming does; but is: 1.) legal, and more importantly: 2.) free (after upfront installation costs).
I work in an Archetectural firm and we have been installing this in buildings (police stations, jails, prisons, parts of hospitals) where we can't have radio / television interference. As a nice(?) sideline, you can't use a cell phone while in a room / building with RF insulation. I'm surprised that more theaters / restaurants haven't had this installed.
I work in an Archetectural firm and we have been installing this in buildings (police stations, jails, prisons, parts of hospitals) where we can't have radio / television interference. As a nice(?) sideline, you can't use a cell phone while in a room / building with RF insulation. I'm surprised that more theaters / restaurants haven't had this installed.
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