Knock on Wood
■ Rajeev Bansal
A
couple of years ago, actor
Laurence Fishburne inter-
rupted a Broadway perfor-
mance to give a piece of his mind to
a member of the audience whose
cell phone had gone off during the
show. I am sure that, at one point or
another, you have been similarly
annoyed in a public place by an
inconsiderate cell-phone user. How
can a restaurant or theater owner
provide a “quiet zone” for its cus-
tomers? One approach (mentioned
in the June 2001 column) is to
install an electronic jamming
device such as C-Guard (manufac-
tured and marketed by Netlines
Technologies Ltd., Israel), which
creates a “quiet zone” by disabling
cell phones in a defined area.
Unfortunately, as the same column
went on to note, such devices are
considered illegal by not only the Federal
Communications Commission (USA)
but also by similar regulatory agencies in
many countries around the world
including Canada, Britain, and Australia.
[1], [2]. (Japan is one of the few countries
where cell-phone jamming devices can
be legally installed in places like restau-
Rajeev Bansal is with the University of
Connecticut, U-1157, 371 Fairfield Road, Storrs,
CT 06269-1157 USA, Rajeev@engr.uconn.edu.
38
Dr. Oda’s team experimentally
evaluated four different formula-
tions for magnetic wood. The first
was ordinary wood panels with a
coating of ferrite powder. The sec-
ond one was created by pressing
boards out of a mixture of older
wood powder and a ferrite pow-
der. The third one required impreg-
nating wood panels with ferrite
particles. The most successful ver-
sion used wood pulp containing
ferrite powder sandwiched
between two thin wood panels.
The performance was evaluated by
using sleeves of magnetic wood
around transmitting antennas
operating from 900 MHz (lower
cell-phone frequencies) to 2.5 GHz
(Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless
bands). It was found that a 4-mm
© CORBIS
thick sandwich of magnetic wood
rants and theaters.) attenuated the RF signal power by a
IEEE member Hideo Oda [3] of whopping 97%. The hope is that the
Iwate University (Japan) and his col- material can eventually be produced in
leagues have been perfecting another the form of inexpensive panels sold by
line of defense against irresponsible local building supply stores. Another
cell-phone users in public places. Based potential application for magnetic wood
on a patented design [4], Dr. Oda’s mag- paneling would be to protect a corporate
netic wood can be used to panel a room wireless LAN from snoopers outside the
to shield it from cell-phone signals. The building [5] (see the December 2001 col-
Japanese investigators settled on wood umn [6]).
because “it offers more natural, aesthet- Of course, as long as regulatory and
ic options to interior design” [5]. legal hurdles remain for active jammers
March 2004

like C-Guard or passive absorbers like
magnetic wood, we will have to make
do with nontechnological fixes. A sur-
vey [1] by Letstalk.com in 2000 indicat-
ed that 57% of Americans favored a ban
on cell-phone use in theaters, restau-
rants, and classrooms. When the
Toronto Star [1] surveyed Canadians on
the same issue, 60% of the respondents
40
supported cell-phone etiquette laws.
Whether social solutions like these can
really bring us some “quiet zones,” only
time will tell. Knock on wood.
References
[1] “Jamming could be the answer to mobile
phone traffic,” MSNBC, March 13, 2001
[Online]. Available: http://zdnet.com.com/
2100-11-528850.html
[2] R. Bansal, “IMS 2001 quiz,” IEEE Microwave,
vol. 2, pp. 42–44, June 2001.
[3] Available: http://www.eng.iwate-u.ac.jp/en
[4] “Wood magnetic material,” Japanese Patent
Heisei 6-54199, 1994.
[5] “Magnetic wood blocks mobile phone sig-
nals,” New Scientist, June 27, 2002 [Online].
Available: http://www.NewScientist.Com
[6] R. Bansal, “Wireless networks: An electronic
battlefield?,” IEEE Microwave, vol. 2, pp. 32–34,
Dec. 2001.
March 2004