Fight the mobile phone invasion at 30,000ft

Financial Times ^ | 3/28/2006 | Jagdish Bhagwati

[tellw]

Our right to peace and quiet is guaranteed by fining taxi drivers from India who honk as they drive: a habit acquired through years of dodging cycles, cows, cars and the carefree in the crowded streets of Calcutta and Karachi. Flights are not allowed to land in Washington DC beyond late evening so that those living around the airport enjoy what is now widely regarded as the human right to undisturbed sleep. Yet, noise pollution, practised with abandon in your face and in your ears, is tolerated in enclosed spaces in buses, trains, restaurants and cinemas and is spreading like bird flu, only more surely and more harmfully to our peace of mind and mental health.

The final straw in the US (followed, presumably, by everywhere else in rapid sequence) is the impending decision to allow the use of mobile phones on flights. In this way, loud passengers will be free to jabber away in a closed cabin, saying “hi” to Joey, Joel and Josie at home just for the heck of it, or conducting their business, which is no concern of yours, by public declamation. What can be done if the US Federal Aviation Administration allows this madness to happen, as it will? I say: we are not out of remedies.

Consider what you can do in the aircraft cabin itself. Before the Good Samaritans came down on smoking, I had a friend who was so annoyed by the smoke getting into his eyes in restaurants – as the smokers at the next table held their cigarette in a Marlene Dietrich gesture, almost under his nose – that he carried a little Sanyo fan that would blow the smoke back into their startled faces. While the stewardesses would not let you turn on a CD player at loud volume to drown out the mobile phone users, how about screaming into your own phone (without, of course, actually dialling and paying) sweet nothings to an imaginary girlfriend or boyfriend? This is worth a try. But frankly, how long and how often can such ridicule and retaliatory noise-making be sustained, without unleashing a competition in steadily higher octaves, one which the vulgar freaks you are trying to drown out are likely to win?

A more effective remedy has to be a collective, legal response. How about encouraging environmental and human rights groups to file lawsuits against the agencies that grant the permission for the use of mobile phones in flight, and against the airlines when they act on such permission? The American Association of Retired Persons might be convinced to join such a class action, in defence of the peaceful journeys sought by the increasing numbers of senior citizens taking discounted vacations from the rich countries.

The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, under Article 8, guarantees that “everyone has the right to respect for his private . . . life” and “there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as in accordance with the law and necessary . . . in the interests of . . . the economic well-being of the country”. Surely, the “private life” includes a life of peace in which one can snooze without the gaggle of gratuitous talk that certainly does not advance any country’s economic well-being.

But what of the rights of the mobile phone users? These are more frivolous than those of the fellow passengers on whom they impose. Besides, the airlines can readily accommodate their desire to talk without imposing on those who seek a quiet flight. Mobile phone users should be provided, at an extra cost charged to their tickets, with a phone booth at which they can queue for their turn. That would protect their rights without invading ours.

The smoking ban on all flights came along when the science behind the problem of secondary harm from smoking became well-established. But this harm does not have to be physical; it can also be mental. The stress of having to be in an enclosed space with continuous noise is sufficient to produce high blood pressure, fatigue and other ailments, as the plaintiffs complained in their testimony regarding airport noise in Hatton and Others v The United Kingdom at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2001. It is still not completely clear whether continual emission of radiation from the use of mobile phones on flights could cause secondary brain damage to fellow passengers. If providence were just, it would surely affect the brains of the users. But who believed at first that cigarettes could hurt the smoker’s own family?

So, perhaps the compelling answer may be to threaten the mobile phone companies themselves with ultimate liability, reminding them of the cigarette manufacturers who eventually faced huge financial damages. Eventual retribution could be the most powerful deterrent to the rising spectre of cellular noise.

The writer, university professor, economics and law, at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of In Defense of Globalization

Do you agree with the author? Share your views online at www.ft.com/bhagwati

[TommyDale]

>i>"Yet no one ever says a word to the rude people who talk loudly while NOT on their cell phone."

I once had a group of small children sitting behind me kicking the seat, while their parents sat peacefully up in First Class. I got up and told the flight attendant to get these children under their parents' control. They made the parents come back and sit with the kids. Guess where? In my seat, and I was moved up to First Class in THEIR seat!

[Sisku Hanne]

It's obvious this guy hasn't been talking to conspiracy-theorist Charlie Sheen-han. Everyone knows cellphones don't work at 30,000 feet. /sarcasm.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

I practice the Flight Free Lifestyle and drive my comfortable old Lincoln where ever I need to go or choose to roam. Packed like a sardine in an aluminum cylinder filled with miscelaneous rifraff practicing no end of obnoxious habits and producing odious smells is no way to travel. And that's first class. Tourist I don't even like to think about. And don't get me started on the cacotopia of the modern airport.

[tellw]

Beamer used a GTE airphone. See here

[Blueflag]

The directv antennae are phased array attenae as I understand it, and look up to the satellites.

I am suprised to hear that cell phones will work in a jet aircraft (1) due to speed of handoff between towers, and (2) lack of signal from and to the towers.

I am curious.

Anyway, Mr. or Ms. Rude's cell phone will not work at FL35 over the Kansas. Or am I wrong?

[glorgau]

I carry a jammer for theaters, restaurants and the like. Illegal as all hell and dangerous for airplanes (never used it on one) but hey nobody lives forever.

So, if you go somewhere with lots of bars but your calls keep dropping, catch a hint and lower your voice. ;-)

[Blueflag]

Thought so.

[LIConFem]

You were lucky! :o)

I take a train to and from work every day. Last Friday afternoon, there was a spanish-speaking gentleman on my train who was talking rather loudly on his cell phone for nearly the entire trip. A few stations before mine, a man got up to leave. As he was walking past the phone-talker, he yelled something like, "No one wants to hear your conversations, you f$ckin' a$$hole". Sitting two rows in front of him was another man with his young (grade-school age) daugher. People applauded.

I don't condone excessive cell-phone use in restaurants, trains, planes, et cetera. But the level of phoney righteous indignation exhibited by some folks is ridiculous, and largely (IMO) the result of group-think.

[HOYA97]

I don't know about allowing cell phones, but we need to allow internet access so we can do e-mail and research as needed.

[JimRed]

...I believe Ted Olson's wife (forgot her name) did use a cell phone from the back of her plane...

Barbara, I think; God bless her.

[steve-b]

This guy has no reason to complain, as his normal posture shields his ears quite effectively.

[linda_22003]

Barbara, yes, who was supposed to go on her trip the previous day but stayed home so she could start September 11 with her husband - since it was his birthday! :-[

[Centurion2000]

Why is this idiot so worried about this? considering the background noise in an airplane, I wear ear plugs against the jet engine noise. Some retard on a cell phone is not going to bother me. Besides, headphones with music will drown out a caller as well.

[null and void]

I laugh everytime I read one of these whinning pieces about cell phones in aircraft. The simply truth is, they will only work for about 5 minutes before landing or about 3 minutes after takeoff.

Next time you fly, turn your cell phone on you moron - see? No signal. Sheesh.

I've noted the same thing.

How did all those calls come from FLT 93?

[Just another Joe]

The smoking ban on all flights came along when the science behind the problem of secondary harm from smoking became well-established.

I call BS on this statement.

In the topic of the article, I learned long ago to shut out distractions from others as needed.
Let the cell phone users jabber in the cabin. It won't disturb my sleep.

[jiggyboy]

I laugh everytime I read one of these whinning pieces about cell phones in aircraft. The simply truth is, they will only work for about 5 minutes before landing or about 3 minutes after takeoff.

What makes this debate possible is that the airlines want to put their own cell antenna on the plane to make it possible for the entire flight.

[stuartcr]

I've always been told that cellphones and wireless devices mess up the airplanes electronics. How come, all of a sudden, it's going to be OK?

[steve-b]

Next time you fly, turn your cell phone on you moron - see? No signal. Sheesh.
I've noted the same thing. How did all those calls come from FLT 93?

Obviously, this proves that the DUmmie LIHOP/MIHOP conspiracy theories must be true. [ /SARCASM ]

[null and void]

However, I believe Ted Olson's wife (forgot her name) did use a cell phone from the back of her plane, where she and her fellow passengers had been herded by the hijackers.

FReeper Barbara K Olson, BKO...

[kaboom]

considering the background noise in an airplane...

It means that cell phone users will be yelling into their phones instead of talking, and those passengers seated near engines will be screaming into their phones.

Kind of like most Nextel users.