Cell Phone Didn't Work At Hotel
 

Christopher Elliott, travel commentator, writes, as quoted here in a New York Times article:

(quote)
"My cellphone seldom works anywhere near the hotel," said Mr. T, the senior manager for a ... in ...,Utah. "Not just in my room, but in the parking lot as well."

What is going on? Mr. T., ..., has a long list of probable culprits - including the building's architecture, the area's geography and the cellphone industry's erratic coverage.

But another theory is starting to gain traction among business travelers: hotels are blocking the signals [to encourage more use of the more expensive hotel phones].
(end quote)

It might not be the hotel but rather some independent party. Maybe the speaker at a lecture, annoyed by audience members' voices competing with his, had a jammer and by a push of a button, secured quiet in the hotel ballroom.

Maybe it was the stage manager for a concert or play, hearing unnecessarily loud talking in the balcony, used a jammer.

So we* cell phone users could be to blame, talking when we shouldn't be let alone loudly.

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm

*I don't even own a cell phone although on a few occasions have borrowed one.

I think you'll find that in most countries blocking the signal is actually illegal.

I won't pretend to be an expert on this, but I did not think jammers had that long of a range.

I would strongly suspect the cell phone provider/their partners.

For instance, in Baltimore, with Cingular, my cell phone was showing a full (4 bars, I think) signal strength, but I continually got dropped calls. I talked to a Cingular tech rep, which got me nowhere except for this bit of info...sometimes the cellular companies subcontract or whatever, their lines to others...even though those "others" go under the same business name. And, their networks are not seamlessly compatible with the other network provided by that same company.

I was taking a taxi once from BWi to downtown Batltimore, and the taxi driver had a cell phone with the same provide...Cingular. I asked him about this, and he said he'd never had a problem with them there.

Yeah, I was confused by this, too, but solved the prob by dropping Cingluar for another provider that would provide service when in their area.

Crazy stuff...

It's done in other countries in public buildings, that's been reported over and over again.

It's illegal in the United States to do so. If it was in fact happening, then the FCC would be all over the establishment, because every cell provider would be complaining.

Nobody is going to go through the trouble to block each and every cell phone band. On my phone they would have to block two GSM bands, the digital CDMA bands, and the analog bands to keep me from making or getting a call.

Maybe Mr Elliott needs to get a better phone or a better service provider? And some medication for the paranoia? A speaker can press a button that can reach his room probably through a half dozen floors, but not out a window in the parking lot? Give me a break.

Jammers in this country are very agressively hunted down if they are on ham bands, pager bands, business bands, and cell phone bands. When it happens, you hope it's the FCC who gets to them first, because if it's the people doing the hunting, there won't be much of their equipment left.