Posted on 12/18/2005 7:27:25 AM PST by Kjobs
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The National Association of Theater Owners wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow the blocking of cell phone signals in theaters.
John Fithian, the president of the trade organization, told the Los Angeles Times theater owners "have to block rude behavior" as the industry tries to come up with ways to bring people back to the cinemas.
Fithian said his group would petition the FCC for permission to block cell phone signals within movie theaters.
Some theaters already have no cell phone policies and ask moviegoers to check their phones at the door, Fithian said.
The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association -- a Washington-based cell phone lobby that is also known as CTIA-the Wireless Association -- said it would fight any move to block cell phone signals.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
I agree. A lot of people probably turn their cell phones down to silent or vibrate anyway. Theater owners are really grasping at straws here.
I call those [bluetooth earpieces] Borg implants and ask the people I see wearing them how their assimilation into the Collective is going.
I put my phone on vibrate. When I go to the movies my kids are at home with a sitter or grandparents. If they block the signal, I won't go to the movies. Not a huge loss on my end.
Well, as a parent, I guess it's no more movies for me.
I refuse to be in a place where I can't be contacted immediately if there is an emergency with my children.
I don't even remember what we were arguing about last week. My memory is too lousy to even consider being able to hold a grudge. ;-)
THE CYBERSPACE AND TECHNOLOGY BEAT
Cell Phone Jammers, Illegal in U.S., Can Create Silent Zones
By MARGIE WYLIE
c.2000 Newhouse News Service
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.
Both companies sell liberally in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, where jammers are used for personal and corporate security. For example, many South American banks jam cell phones to prevent robbers from guiding outside accomplices to mug people who've just made large withdrawals, Israeli said.
Cell phone jammers are readily available on the Internet. Many can be battery-powered and fit in a pocket or briefcase for people who would like to enjoy a meal, movie or church service in peace.
A portable C-Guard sells for about $900 and can cover the area within a 450-foot radius. Lemel's company offers the $890 M2 Jammer, which comes in a briefcase and can block phones within a maximum radius of 50 feet. It's advertised as "ideal for the executive interested in keeping meetings and working lunches free from external distractions." Hubgiant of Taipei, Taiwan, sells its WAC1000 personal jammer, which has an operating radius of up to 30 feet, for $169. And Uptron of Lucknow, India, offers a full range of jammers with coverage ranging from 20 feet to over one mile.
Despite cellular industry fears, the majority of jammer sales aren't to revenge-seeking Luddites, Israeli said. Most go to business owners, government and police. Law enforcement officers can use jammers to throw a net of silence over hostage takers. Corporations use jammers to protect trade secrets. Ahmadi said three British hospitals evaluated the C-Guards in his theater before installing them to prevent interference with crucial medical equipment.
At least one company offers a technological alternative to jamming, and others are working on them.
Zetron Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., manufactures a system that can detect cell phones and warn users to turn them off. It can cover up to a 90-foot radius. BlueLinx Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., is working on Q-Zone, a system that will turn off cell phones or silence their ringers when they enter a protected space. It relies on shortwave technology called Bluetooth that hasn't been widely adopted by cell phone makers and may not be on the market for another three to four years. NetLine is developing a similar system that will work with existing European digital cellular telephones, but not American devices.
In some countries, jammers are gaining currency as a legitimate defense against cell phone abusers. In Japan, Tokyo-based Medic Inc. sold thousands of its Wave Wall jammers to restaurants, funeral directors and others before the government limited their sale. Now jammers must be licensed for use in Japan, and used only in spaces such as live-performance theaters where cell phones are judged by the government to be a nuisance.
But even that's a victory, says Israeli, who thinks such uses help governments see that cell phone "firewalls" can serve a legitimate market under controlled conditions.
"Legislators and government bodies have not yet realized that (jammers) can fulfill a useful role in society," Lem
1) After paying to watch a 90-minute movie, the viewer gets to first sit through a 45-minute barrage of advertisements for overpriced "refreshments" and previews for upcoming films.
2) The previews that get shown can usually be so indiscriminately presented that R and even X rated trailers can show up when you originally go to see a G rated film.
3) Equipment at the best of the theatres is often poorly maintained and operated in such a haphazard fashion that the viewing quality and sound levels encountered are completely a matter of happenstance.
4) Cleanliness and general maintenance of the rest of the establishment.........well, let's not go into THAT before we try to eat. "
You live in a small, residential world. Don't assume you know what the rest of the world is like.
"The backup would have to be on call too. Defeats the point you're making."
The backup IS on call. By definition. The network I'M involved in rolls over the next in line if the primary doesn't respond. Give it up.
I call it his hearing aide:') I was getting my nails done awhile back by a girl that was talking to her boyfriend. Everytime she would say something, I would respond like she was talking to me. After several times she caught on and stopped.
Amway?
You don't have air rights, which is why you can't block airplanes flying over your property as well.
I don't remember either, but we were really pissed off! Says a lot about holding your anger till it cools, doesn't it?
When I go to a staff meeting there are these pretentious jerks who often drive a Saab or Volvo and arrive at the meeting with their cell phone and blue tooth headset, their laptop, and their PDA. Then there are the idiots who bring their Balckberry.
It always seems those who actually matter just bring themselves and the notes they must talk to. They may have uploaded slides to the server to project as well, but if they are important, they don't have to announce it to the world pretentiously.
BTW, when there has been a culling of talent, in the past, those with PDA's who stare into their laptops in meetings got it first.
Glad to see you admitting that people being on-call 24/7 are quite necessary. Toodles!
There are professionals who are always on call, even if off-duty. Doctors, lawyers, IT professionals.
I know a guy who works for HSBC. If their ATM network goes down, he HAS to go in and repair it, no matter what. Customers who can't get their money aren't interested in allowing the IT pros a personal life.
Boy I hear you. I am in fact amazed that any children born before 1995-ish ever lived to adulthood!
"You live in a small, residential world. Don't assume you know what the rest of the world is like."
You're officially on tilt, dude. I live in the same world you do (you pretentious, self-important twit), and if both of us were to disappear in a nanosecond (a word I bet you use as often as possible), that world would not miss a beat.
Like I said earlier: Please stop messing around here, something really important--no, URGENT!--could come across your Crackberry at any second.
See here: http://www.grandtrades.net/GT50.htm
Kind of pricy at $399.00 but if you are up for it, order one, try it out and get back to us.
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