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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (31781)	1/27/2003 5:48:47 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197222

Study: Cell phones 'blind' drivers Monday, January 27, 2003 Posted: 2:52 PM EST (1952 GMT) cnn.com WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Drivers who use a cellular telephone, even with a "hands-free" device, suffer from a kind of tunnel vision that endangers themselves and others, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Legislation that seeks to make mobile telephone use by drivers safer by mandating the use of a hands-free device may be providing a false sense of security, they warned. New York is the only U.S. state that requires the use of the devices for mobile telephone conversations while driving, but 30 others have been considering similar laws, as has the Canadian province of Newfoundland. "Sometimes you have to actually do the silly study that shows the obvious," David Strayer, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Utah, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. Driving simulator used Strayer, whose team has done a series of studies on cell phone use while driving, set up a driving simulator and put 20 volunteers in it. Sometimes they used a cell phone and sometimes they did not. Their reaction time, driving style and performance were monitored. Writing in the March issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Strayer's group said use of a cell phone clearly distracted the drivers. The finding adds to a series of similar studies - most notably a 1997 New England Journal of Medicine report that found talking on a phone while driving quadrupled the risk of accident. "People, when on a cell phone compared to when they weren't, overall their reactions were slower," Strayer said. "They got into more rear-end collisions. They just kind of had a sluggish style that was unresponsive to unpredictable events like a car breaking down in front of them, a light changing and things like that." There was no difference, Strayer said, between using a hands-free or a hand-held cell phone. Impaired either way "You were impaired in both cases," he said. "That suggests to us that whatever legislation may be put into place saying you can do one but not the other ... might send the wrong message and give people a false sense of security." Perhaps even more disturbing, Strayer said, was the finding that the volunteers did not realize they were driving badly. "We asked people afterward how they felt they performed and they usually felt they performed without impairment and, in some cases, thought they drove better when on the cell phones," Strayer said. "It is like studies that show 90 percent of people think they are better-than-average drivers. Forty percent of them are wrong." Strayer wanted to know why talking on a cell phone had such a profound effect on drivers, so his team set up a second experiment. "We used an eye tracker -- a really precise device that allows us to see where someone is looking," he said. They found that while the drivers looked at objects, in this case billboards, if they had been talking on a cell phone at the time they could not remember having seen them. "There is a kind of a tunnel vision -- you aren't processing the peripheral information as well," Strayer said. "Even though your eyes are looking right at something, when you are on the cell phone, you are not as likely to see it." This included road signs, other vehicles and traffic lights. "This is a variant of something called inattention blindness," Strayer said. Tests showed this kind of inattention did not affect drivers who were listening to music, to audio books or talking with a passenger in the car. ----- This needs an explanation. Why would a driver talking on a cell phone be distracted less than a driver talking to a passenger? Only thing I could think of was that the passenger, who would probably be looking out the window also, might stop talking subconsiously whenever the driver needed to concentrate, but the person on the other end of the phone could not. Now, how about a car full of passengers? How about a car with kids in the back seat fighting? If these things are as "dangerous" as using a cell phone, should we outlaw them too?

To: John Biddle who wrote (31781)	1/27/2003 6:18:46 PM
From: John Biddle	Respond to of 197222

The new telecom buzz is wireless TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2003 02:56:37 AM ] SANJAY ANAND timesofindia.indiatimes.com NEW DELHI: Will phone users prefer wireless connections over fixed ones because of the tariff increase proposed by telecom regulator TRAI? Telecom experts are divided, saying that the situation is in a flux and both consumers and phone companies will weigh their options between now and April 1, when the new tariffs take effect. They say the possible consumer shift to wireless may heat up competition between cellular operators and basic phone companies, who will be forced to push mobile wireless in local loop (WLL-M) connections instead of fixed lines. This may further reduce the tariff difference between fixed and mobile phones. But that may not mean that customers will throw fixed phones out of their windows as of tomorrow. For now, it is difficult to predict traffic patterns and consumer choice before April 1, but one thing is clear: Fixed phones will still be cheaper to use compared to cellular telephony, making WLL-M a possible winner. According to a Tata Indicom official, new tariffs might "disincentivise" investments in fixed phones. "I think that basic phone companies may now focus more on WLL-M," he added. He said the shift could slow down plans to provide high- speed bandwidth to homes at affordable rates. There could be even less incentive to take fixed phones to rural and remote areas. Officials at BSNL, are already planning to push mobile connections — be it WLL-M or cellular. It costs over Rs 20,000 and more to provide a fixed phone connection but less than half that amount for providing mobile or WLL-M connection. Reliance, aiming to be a major private telecom player, has already bet heavily on WLL-M, although it has sunk in huge fixed line infrastructure nationwide. "The tariff proposals may have some adverse impact on the growth of fixed lines," said a Reliance official. "However, considering the country’s socio-economic conditions, the big churn from fixed to mobility may not happen immediately. In a family of 5-6 members, for instance, there may not be 5 or 6 cellular or WLL-M phones but there would be one or two fixed line connections," he added. TRAI has made all incoming calls free on cellphones, allowed basic phone companies to decide (without its approval) WLL-M tariffs and made basic phone companies pay access charge to cellular firms. On the other hand, it has reduced the call duration for fixed phones to two minutes (90 seconds for fixed to cellphone calls) and hiked rentals and reduced free calls.