[118687] in Cypherpunks
Cell towers can't track very short calls?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Broiles)
Tue Oct 5 19:43:46 1999
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 16:26:21 -0700
From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Message-ID: <19991005162621.B21963@ideath.parrhesia.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Reply-To: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>
Today's Wall Street Journal has an article discussing the prohibition
against using cell phones on airplanes, pointing out that the airlines'
claims that their use is dangerous are unsupported by either reserach
nor historical data.
The article quotes Bentley Alexander of AT&T's wireless unit as saying
that airborne use of cellphones creates a problem for cellphone
carriers, because the connection may not be active long enough at each
tower for the billing systems to account for the use, leading to free
calls.
Now, it certainly isn't appropriate to defraud cellphone carriers, but
it is interesting to note that, if a person wanted to defeat other
unpleasant aspects of the cellular system (such as the surveillance
features), a person might be able to achieve that goal by switching
towers frequently.
--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles@netbox.com
