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France Legalizes Mobile Phone Jamming
Metrollica writes: "Wired has reported that France has become the first country to legalize mobile phone jamming in public much to the support of the citizens. A quote from the article indicates that jamming will 'make it impossible to make or receive calls, voice mails and text messages on a mobile telephone.'"
The main reason for people wanting things like this is to keep people's phones from ringing in the middle of, say, a movie. They say that bluetooth technologies will help prevent things like that from happening, by having the theater automatically put all phones into "silent" ring mode when you walk in. Or so one hopes.
Might things like this eventually push broader acceptance of thse kinds of features? Or will it just piss off everyone? (I know it'd piss me off, if I were in a profession where I relied on a remote page for, say, something life-threatening. I know I already take efforts to mute my pilot and turn off my phone when I go into a theater...)
Another classic example of punishing the innocent because of the abuses of a few jerks.
Having been a cell-phone user for the past 6 years, I still don't understand why anyone must talk to someone everywhere they go. I mostly keep my (employer-issued) phone off. If I must call anyone, I wait until I park the car and discreetly talk in the car. For the most part, if I'm not at my home or my office, I can't be reached and I like it that way. If I didn't use a modem, I wouldn't have a home phone at all.
I just wish someone would invent an "oxygen jamming" device, so I don't have to pass through clouds of noxious cigarette fumes on the sidewalk. That, and a "screaming child jammer". :)
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The government is not preventing people from being annoyed. They are making it possible for business owners, etc. to prevent their customers from being annoyed by other customers. This is a very important distinction. They are basically formally granting more rights to its citizens. I wish the US would follow their example. The one stipulation I would suggest is that cell phones can only be jammed where hard-wired phones are readily available in case of emergency and the jammers can be easily and quickly disabled by their owners in the event of an emergency.
I have mixed feelings about this one.
On one hand, everyone in a local area ought to have as much equal rights to the EM band for cell phone use as they have equal rights to acoustic energy bands for talking, boom boxes, etc. So that individuals have some right to low noise in movie theaters, for example.
On the other hand, suppose that individual in the theater is getting an urgent call having to do with life-threatening events affecting a loved one?
It's too easy to a draw a simple line that will be wrong.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Otherwise, you've lost my business. I chose my phone precisely because it has a silent mode.
Now if they could jam babies...
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Couldn't find any information regarding whether this is accomplished by just making a huge Faraday cage around the theatre, actively jamming the GSM frequency spectrum or some other method.
But anyway, it must already be legal here as it's being used, no?
Some one made the remark about posts talking about the vital need for cellphones. Here it is.
Many people in the Armed Forces (active force or reserve) have to carry cell phones or pagers while they are on call. _At no time_ are they allowed to be inaccessible to both their home phone and their pager/cell phone while on call. If jamming becomes legal in Canada and the United States, it must come with a clause that all persons must be informed that their cell phone/pager has been turned off.
In a case like in a theatre, where cell phones and pages have their signals jammed, the theatre should have to give notification that from point A to point B, there are jammers being used.
And yes, places that do use jammers will lose buisiness from people who want to be able to get phone calls (such as some one waiting for a friend in a restaurant, a doctor watching a movie while on call, etc).
Just my 2 cents ^-^
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Ok, so what happens when you live in an apartment in the inner city and one of the neighboring businesses decided that they wish to use this technology to make their restaurant peaceful for the customers?
If we were dealing with high power or [comparatively] low frequencies, you would have a point. Frankly, the metal used in commercial buildings tends to block RF at the frequencies used by cell phones -- unless the building owners specifically take steps to make the signal available within his store.
Jammers don't need to be powerful to be effective. When the building's walls attenuate the signal 30-40 dB already, it doesn't take much radiation inside the cage to completely mask the signal from the cell site, and result in a "No Signal" indication. Done right, it would take a handful of milliwatts to get the job done...and the same wall that attenuates incoming signals also attenuates the level of the jamming signal seen outside the building, so neighboring buildings wouldn't be affected at all.In the school situation you brought up in your question, the school would deploy a number of very-low-power tuned-band white-noise generators in the building so that the jamming effect would not be noticed from the parking lot or the playground, let alone at the neighbor's house or the road in front of the school.
this is a completely rediculous loss of rights. ... i have it on vibrate. if i go to a movie, i leave it on. if i get a call during the movie, i check the caller and usually just turn off the ringer for the rest of the call. this way i can respond to emergencies or good friends (i would obviously leave the theater before answering).
...sure, it would be nice, but only in third-person!
... so vibration isn't noticed. cellphone manufacturers could fix this by introducing a wristband, necklace, or wallet attachment that receives a wireless signal from the phone and vibrates (with the phone) on rings.
i have a cellphone and have never gone out in public with it on 'ring'
this is rather similar to the gagging of loud children, or even allowing the shooting of stupid people.
the biggest problem with vibrating phones for most people (students and women at least) is that the phone is kept in a bag/purse
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I expect there will be lots of replies saying how unnecessary cellphones are (blabbermouths in cinemas, road accidents, etc.) to society
Humans have survived for millions of years without cellphones. Humans have also survived for millions of years without public sanitation systems and medicine. Society isn't going to disintegrate just because you get a little annoyed with people who want to talk to their friends 24 hours a day from every point on the globe.
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