(ABP) — They sound off during formal dinners, in restaurants, at the movies and even in churches. They’ve become the bane of every public speaker. The dreaded cell phones.
As technology has given us the ability to reach out and touch each other, whenever and wherever, the cell phone has become both a blessing and a curse. It was the curse part that prompted four Roman Catholic churches in Monterrey, Mexico, to look for ways to strike back.
Church leaders are placing cell phone jammers in their sanctuaries to keep phones from receiving a signal while in the buildings. The size of paperback books, the Israeli-made jammers are nestled unobtrusively among paintings and statues.
“There are still some people who don’t understand that being at mass is sharing a moment with God,” said Juan Jose Martinez, a spokesman for the archdiocese. “Sadly, we had no other choice but to use these little gadgets.”
The ringing of cell phones is increasingly being thwarted — from Mexican sanctuaries and India’s parliament to Tokyo theaters and commuter trains — by devices originally developed to help security forces avert eavesdropping and stop phone-triggered bombs, according to the Associated Press.
At the present time, use of these devices is illegal in the United States and most Western nations, but Mexico and many other countries have no law against them. The devices at the Monterrey churches were imported from Tel Aviv-based Netline Communications Technologies Ltd.
Officials for Netline say they are selling thousands of jammers a year and have expanded their business worldwide, the Associated Press reported. The increasing popularity of the devices has other manufacturers also selling them throughout the world, with dozens of suppliers selling the jammers on the Internet.