Summary

While watching a movie yesterday I noticed that the movie theater chain had convinced Cingular to co-develop a "please turn off your cell phones" segment. I started thinking that, if the major carriers wanted to, they could develop a system that would make this automatic. Let's be honest, while we want to think the people that let their phones ring in quiet areas are inconsiderate, in truth, most of those people are just forgetful and/or lazy. I fall into both categories occasionally. What is really needed is a way for concenting phone users to have their phone automatically transition to a quieter mode after entering an area where it would be inconsiderate to have the phone ring.
A system could be devised where a small transmitter placed in quite locations would signal the phone that it should transition to a quite mode. The user would have the option of ignoring the signal, where for example doctors may want to ignore the quite mode.

Why is this important?

More and more businesses and other orginizations meeting places are being overrun by the distraction of a ringing cell phone. This does not happen because the users are inconsiderate, but because they are either forgetful, lazy, or both. This technology can supplement our basic human nature to create a more productive and satisfying world.

Challenge

Who is going to pay for this feature?
After all nothing is free and someone must pay for the software R&D and the transmitters. I believe that the software for the phone will be implemented by the cell phone providers or eventually by the manufacturers themselves. If there were an opensource reference application (say in java) then the R&D for each phone type would be minimal. As for the tranmitters, I believe that the orginizations and businesses would purchase these directly. Movie theaters, churches, quiet restraunts, and other orginizations would be willing, I believe, to spend ~$100 / room to enable the quite feature. Some businesses would be willing to spend something similar for conference rooms.

Research

Implementation Method

I belive that this entire service could be implemented with Bluetooth.

.....describe the beacon tranmitter and behavior of the phone......

While some may question the range of Bluetooth, I believe the range of the system would be sufficient if using the higher power Bluetooth modes. If the fixed tranmitter were just a beacon tranmitting a one way message, the transmitter could use the higher power Bluetooth modes not implemented in the phones. The phone would not need to communicate back to the tranmitter, but would simply register that the beacon was heard.

Implementation Issues

The current Bluetooth security modes have most Bluetooth radios either powered down or in a non-discovery mode. The phones that are powered down would of course need to be enabled but the non-discovery mode would be just fine since the phone is only looking for the beacon but not required to respond.

Having the phone's Bluetooth mode enabled leads to a question of battery power. In my phone I have the Bluetooth mode enabled because I am constantly using the Bluetooth mode for synchronization with my PC and for my Bluetooth headset. However I can imagine that many users to not need to have Bluetooth enabled on the phone. Once Bluetooth is enabled, the battery life is reduced in many phones by 10%-20%. Requiring that Bluetooth be enabled by default may turn into a "my phone lasts longer than your phone" marketing nightmare.

Today many phones in use do not have Bluetooth capabilities. More than half of the models being sold do have Bluetooth, but that may not be enough to make a serious dent in the noise problem. This technology will only be successful when most phones in use are Bluetooth capable.