[Note: This comment comes from Farber's IP list. Given that there has been no action to Farber's 2004 suggestion, I see that solution as a non-starter. That being said, I think that the main problem which needs to be addressed and which causes businesses to resort to jamming is (wait for it..) RINGTONES!!! Good luck solving that one. DLH]
Begin forwarded message:
From: “Paul Baran”
To:
Subject: RE: [IP] Re: Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal
Hi Dave:
Remember good old “side tone� Back in your Bell Lab days Dave, remember when wired telephones were designed to leak a sample of signal from the microphone back to the earphone to assure the user that he or she was being heard at the other end. If you spoke too loudly you heard yourself and automatically then spoke more softly. This acoustic feedback reduced the dynamic range of signals the phone system had to handle, and people rarely shouted into their wired telephones. It was win-win for all.
With cellular telephones the speaker and microphone tend to be close together, so implementing side tone is more difficult than in a conventional wired telephone. (The feedback could cause a loud squeal.) But, today we have wonderful signal processing in a small chip area that could address this issue. The underlying assumption is some cellphone users shout thinking they will not otherwise be heard clearly. If so, then, requiring acoustic feedback in cellphones would encourage them to speak more softly — as the sound of their own voice otherwise would be so loud as to be uncomfortable. Might this allow us to instill a little politeness into some cellphone users, without having to do so in an impolite manner?
What do you think, Dave?
Paul
Paul , I completely agree. On All Things Considered, December 15, 2004
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4229967
on a program titled “What’s behind the shouting on cell phones” I suggested the same path to alleviate the problem.
Dave