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.'"

Comments

Good riddance

[Deagol]

I wish they'd do that here in the States. I'm so sick of people yapping on their cell-phones, mostly trying to appear self-important. And don't give me the "emergency" argument -- we survived just fine in the pre-cellphone era.

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". :)

Interesting

[4of12]

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.

Re:Might this push bluetooth-like capabilities?

[OneFix]

(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.

Ok, lets think this through...First off, it mentions "mobile phones" specifically, and while it might be obvious that any existing technology would also effect pagers, it's not exactly imposible to jam ONLY cell phones...or better yet, only allow certain phones to work...(what keeps Motorolla from designing a "Medical Use Only" pager that won't be jammed by these devices).

The other thing is, if a cell phone or a pager is being jammed, the device should tell the user ("Out Of Range" or "No Service" message) and you can make a CHOICE to either stay at that establishment (and face the possible consequences), or in the case of a movie theater...simply walk up to the manager before your movie starts and say "I would like my money back...I'm a doctor and I can't stay here because my pager is being jammed". Or if you are seeing a movie, call your hospital and leave the number of the theater with them...

If this happens with enough ppl, then they might disable the jamming equipment or what is more likely the case, this becomes yet another reason why you are generally paid more money for being put on pager duty.

Then again, I know that parametics and doctors can carry walkie-talkies that are activated by a base station in a car...this is pretty much the same technology as police use.