Copyright New York Times Company May 9, 1999To the Editor:
The news of a device designed to thwart phone use in public places comes as music to troubled ears (''Noises Off: A Muzzle for Cell Phones,'' April 11).
One goes to a restaurant, theater or even a sports arena in part to leave work behind, not to be trapped, as it were, in someone else's office. To get on a train these days -- commuter or otherwise -- is to enter a veritable torture chamber; long gone are the delicious pleasures of reading or simply daydreaming while in transit.
But is the only answer to cell phones a complex device like the one described -- one that detects nearby wireless devices and emits bursts of static on the frequency?
Couldn't cell-free zones be established unambiguously, with signs showing a red slash through the image of a phone? Signs of a similar nature are used routinely to designate no-smoking zones, and nobody lights up in places where those signs are posted.
Isn't it likely that even those who are addicted to their annoying instruments would get the message and absent themselves, at least for a while, from telephonic felicity? It's certainly worth a try.
JOEL CONARROEManhattan, April 11
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