MELBOURNE, Australia-Someone is just settling into a film or play, conversing intimately in a restaurant or addressing the ball at the first hole-and a mobile phone ring interrupts. While usually a fine tool for keeping in touch, the mobile phone all of a sudden becomes irritating.
Such interruptions are hardly surprising given the general, and very public, use of mobiles these days, particularly when coupled with waning regard to etiquette. For all the convenience and communicative powers of cellular networking, the many melodic rings of the mobile phone remain to some a modern public nuisance.
It used to be that operators issued brochures to keep us mindful of our mobile manners. Needless to say, these efforts tended to fall on deaf ears. Mobile phone jammers gave businesses sensitive to patron disquiet a more advanced option of prompting users to button those phones.
That was until the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) outlawed jammers in March, ironically citing “social costs”-if jammers were allowed to proliferate-of the ban.
Enter the South Australian-based researcher, the Centre for Telecommunications Information Networking (CTIN).
Engineers at CTIN believe they have hit on another, more sophisticated technical solution. Rather than crudely disabling radiocommunications within a certain area, CTIN’s device, named Politeness, only serves to silence the mobile phone’s ring. In other words, unlike with jammers, mobile calls can still be answered and made.
Employing Bluetooth wireless technology developed by Nokia and L.M. Ericsson, among others, Politeness works by emitting a low-powered radio signal within the premises of a business, which CTIN labels a “politeness zone,” and automatically switching mobile phones to silent mode.
Bluetooth works via wireless, short-range radio, enabling mobile phone users to connect to a range of devices-like earphones or a laptop-without the need for cables. Unlike infrared, Bluetooth doesn’t require line of sight but connects devices within about a 10-meter radius.
“Our approach has been driven by a desire to build polite behavior into the technology without punishing other users of mobile telephones in the same geographic area,” John Leske, CTIN research engineer, said. “It’s a very easy technical solution to a social problem.
“The real problem is that human beings don’t always remember to turn off their phones in the appropriate locations or at the appropriate times. But the use of jamming devices is an extreme way of solving the problem and creates technical difficulties for other mobile telephone users in the vicinity of the device, but out of the designated jamming zone.”
The ACA drew this conclusion, too, but was also concerned about the health effects of jamming devices, as well as the possible interference with emergency calls. Besides muting the ring mode, Politeness lets the phone otherwise function normally.
The technology will have to be incorporated into mobile handsets to be viable, but Leske said he thinks most mobile telephone users prefer the phone to automatically act with a “conscience.”
The CTIN proposal has generated high levels of interest from mobile phone manufacturers and local operators. Leske conceded, though, that Politeness offered no financial incentive to suppliers and operators, but rather asked of them to exercise a social responsibility.
He also said that Politeness is unlikely to get off the ground until at least one-third of phones are Bluetooth-enabled. U.S.-based market forecaster Dataquest recently predicted 79 percent of digital handsets will have Bluetooth by 2002.
“You need a critical mass of Bluetooth phone users before you can expect Politeness to have any impact on general behavior,” Leske said. “This would then exert social pressure on those without Bluetooth to embrace the idea of a politeness zone.”
