Noises Off: A Muzzle for Cell Phones

By DAVID WALLIS

NEW YORK -- There are places where cellular phones are as unwelcome as fire ants at a picnic. Just ask Laurence Fishburne.

During a performance of "The Lion in Winter" at New York's Roundabout Theater in early March, Fishburne suddenly stepped out of character and growlingly upbraided a man in the audience whose cell phone had been ringing for half a minute. The play resumed only after a long, loud ovation.

But gentle or ungentle reminders from actors, not to mention librarians, symphony conductors, maitres d'hotel, and other public shushers, have so far not succeeded in keeping America's 60 million-odd cell phones (and their owners) from making nuisances of themselves.

Now, though, a small company in Israel is offering a technological fix: a device about the size of a cigar box called C-Guard Cellular Firewall, which is said to block cell phones within a hundred-yard radius from sending or receiving calls. It is a cure that may prove as controversial as the disease.

The company, Netline Technologies Ltd. of Tel Aviv, sells the Firewall over the Internet for roughly $1,000. The device detects the activity of any nearby wireless device and emits bursts of static on the same radio frequency. Cell phones in its area of influence report "no service" or "signal not available" to their owners, and incoming calls do not get through.

"Every medicine has side effects, and so does cellular service," said Netline vice president Gil Israeli, one of the Firewall's designers and a retired Israeli military officer. "We are simply offering a pill that reduces those side effects."

But irritating chatter and ill-timed rings were not the side effects that prompted Netline to develop the device; security lapses were. "Some years ago, several officers were having a meeting," Israeli recalled. "One of my colleagues sat on his cell phone, which pushed the 'send' button. He had dialed someone who listened in. Luckily, it was another officer."

Unluckily for Netline, cell-phone jamming runs afoul of the Federal Communications Commission, whose approval is required for devices that send signals over the air. "We would not authorize a device that's intended to deliberately interfere with authorized radio services," said a senior FCC official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Nonetheless, the official acknowledged that trying to police Internet sales of the Firewall could prove as difficult as stopping New Yorkers from jaywalking.

The specter of deliberate dead zones worries the cell phone industry. "If one of our members learns that jamming equipment is in use, the FCC will find out about it in short order," said Geoffrey Nelson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications

Industry Association, who cited the 98,000 emergency 911 calls his group reckons are made on cell phones daily.

And experts say anyone who installs a C-Guard Cellular Firewall would be skating on thin legal ice. Under federal law, interfering with legal over-the-air communication is punishable by fines of up to $11,000 and a year in prison for each incident.

But Israeli argues that there is a sound defense for his company's device. "When cellular operators were awarded a license to exclusively use frequency bands, no permission was granted to invade one's private property and disturb the rightful owner," Israeli said. "Just as anyone is entitled to remove a trespasser who causes damage, an owner is entitled to use C-Guard to protect himself from nuisance."

Israeli, who asserted that the device had been sold to American customers but would not name them, said his company did not rule out challenging the FCC in court. In the meantime, he said, "We are optimistic that many enlightened countries will accept C-Guard as beneficial." Last June, the Japanese government said it would accept applications for licenses to install such devices.

Legal issues aside, restaurants might seem a fertile market for the Firewall, both because loud phone conversations can ruin the mood and because of the profits from in-house pay phones. But restaurateurs are divided on the device's desirability.

Danny Meyer, who owns several Manhattan luxury restaurants, including the Union Square Cafe and the Gramercy Tavern, loves the idea of cellular-free dining. "If I had known about that Firewall I would have put one in" when he opened Gramercy Tavern, he said. "Cell phones have become the cigarettes of the '90s," he added, because of the way users irritate nonusers with them. (It turns out that cell phones usually don't work in the Gramercy Tavern anyway.)

Karen Waltuck, co-owner of Chanterelle in Manhattan, thinks the Firewall idea smacks of authoritarianism. "You don't have to go the Giuliani route and jam people's phones because one person may not behave properly," she said.

By Jesse Freund, W I R E D A U G U S T 1 9 9 8

Choosing to outsmart those service providers, the Israel-based communications company Netline has introduced C-Guard, a device that blocks cell-phone use in an enclosed area and creates a predefined ring-free zone. The tiny wall-mounted gadget can be used to keep movie theaters quiet, prevent electromagnetic interference on airplanes and in hospitals, and enforce call free zones on military bases, where eavesdroppers might tap security-sensitive conversations.

In fact, the engineers at NetLine learned to combat unwanted communications while serving in the Israeli army. And the technology, which works by blocking a handset's communication with a service provider's base station, reflects this training as well as Israel's infatuation with cell phones. When you ask the folks at NetLine what they think of the Holy Land's cellular obsession, you get an opinion that is becoming increasingly prevalent across borders.

"The need for regulation of cell-phone usage will increase dramatically," says Israeli. "The public will demand adequate solutions that require cellular operators to exercise more control over their services." In the meantime, NetLine's solutions allows you to take matters into your own hands.

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