Two Russian theatres jam mobiles

TWO THEATRES in Russia's in St Petersburg became so fed up with ringing mobile phones ruining performances that they've installed mobile phone jammers.

One actor at the Alexandrinsky theatre had been forced to tell a member of the audience, "Turn off that stupid phone and let me finish my soliloquy!"

Although the jamming equipment was expensive, it's effectiveness caused another St Petersburg theatre - the Maly Drama theatre - to follow suite.

Sergei Dmitryiv, the Alexandrinsky theatre's technical director, told The Guardian, "I've had colleagues in Moscow asking how we did it. It's easy. You can buy the equipment on the internet."

And there's the rub. A typical Brit web site, Globalgadgetuk.com, sells a complete range of mobile phone jammers - from handheld devices right up to multi-signal jammers which block 3G phones as well as regular GSM handsets.

However, the site is forced to admit that the UK wireless regulator, Ofcom, bans the use of cellular jammers. So it can't actually sell to Brits. Plus the site can't officially send the devices to Europe since they don't have official approval - a CE mark.

So UK theatres are just going to have to rely on asking people to turn their phones off. µ

L'INQ
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