Being a retiree of AT&T, with the last 10 years of my career working in the Cellular Phone Division, I have a suggestion to the police and the military that will save many lives.

Mobile phones are basically hand-held two-way radios. And like any radio, the signal can be disrupted or jammed. A jamming device transmits on the same radio frequencies as the mobile, disrupting communication between the phone and the mobile-phone base station in the tower.

Jamming devices overpower the mobile phone by transmitting a signal on the same frequency and at a high-enough power that the two signals collide and cancel each other out. Mobile phones are designed to add power if they experience low-level interference, so the jammer recognises and matches the power increase from the phone. Units used by law-enforcement agencies in the US can shut down service up to 1.6 kilometres from the device.

Mobile-phone jamming devices were originally developed for law-enforcement agencies and the military to interrupt communications by criminals and terrorists. The bombs that blew up commuter trains in Spain in March 2004 and the blasts on Bali in October 2002 and in Jakarta in August 2003 all relied on mobile phones to trigger explosives. It has been widely reported that a mobile-phone jammer thwarted an assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. When President George W Bush visited London in November 2004, it was reported that British police considered using jammers to protect the president's motorcade through London.

During a hostage situation, police can control when and where a captor can make a phone call. Police can block phone calls during a drug raid, so suspects can't communicate outside the area. Mobile-phone jammers can be used in areas where radio transmissions are dangerous, such as remote detonation of bombs.

One company in the US provides a jammer that carries its own electrical generator and can block cellular communications in an 8-kilometre radius.

If the government of Thailand would supply the Army and police with these jammers, the risk of injury and death would be reduced considerably. They are relatively inexpensive compared with a human life.

Concerned

Kalasin

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Democrats also expect people to follow the leader

 Re: "Thais are not sheep who blindly follow their leaders", Letters, October 20.

Natika Chairat writes that Thais cannot be expected to follow people whose policies are stated simply as: "Follow me." If that is so, he had better alert the Democrats, who have always run on that policy and whose leader was recently quoted as saying he dare not reveal any of his policies, in case someone steals them.

Dom Dunn

Bangkok

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Farmers part of Thaksin's statistical spin machine

 Re: "Thaksinman back to beat poverty", News, October 20.

I would say it's probably a good idea for The Nation to review closely what material it picks up from foreign agencies such as Agence France-Presse. In this article, we read once again the unsubstantiated and inflated claim that under Thaksin's reign, the income of rural farmers jumped more than 60 per cent. As The Nation dutifully reported in the March 31 article, "Behind the hype lies a poor record", the annual income growth of farmers actually declined from 2000-04, while average household debt jumped to nearly seven times annual income. Although Thaksin is now gone, it's going to take a while before the final nail is put in the coffin of his hype machine.

David Tapila

Sakon Nakhon

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Crimes and hoaxes must not go unpunished

 The former prime minister and his Thai Rak Thai "yes men" left a large heap of dirty laundry behind that must be dealt with. Let's not forget two unresolved episodes that were headline news just weeks before his ouster, namely:

A. The two identified plainclothes men who physically roughed up participants at a small and peaceful protest at a central-Bangkok mall. If the authorities allow such a thing to go unpunished, then they are effectively saying anyone can punch anyone else with no legal repercussions.

B. The alleged bomb threat against the former prime minister and his family. If the suspects are found guilty as charged, they should be dealt with in accordance with the law. If, on the other hand, the bomb threat was a hoax concocted by the Prime Minister's Office, then all involved should be held accountable. There are real people who were accused of that serious crime and who are suffering indignities as a result. There must be a Thai law that deals with filing false police reports and/or false alarms; otherwise, there would be no repercussions for calling in a false bomb threat to an airline or shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, which could lead to deaths when people flee in panic.

Ken Albertsen

Chiang Rai

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Glitches still to be fixed at showpiece airport

 Suvarnabhumi: fine tuning issues or design flaws? Having used the new airport on several occasions since its formal opening, I experienced most of the trouble described in these columns and elsewhere but tried to remain optimistic and hoped these glitches would disappear after a good run-in.

Sure enough, most problems were, or will soon be, cleared. Luggage processing seems smooth enough now, more restaurants will open, the carpark lifts will work one day, adequate signage will be installed, taxis will be available in a convenient way, the staff will know how to give directions, and airport security will manage to stop people from completely blocking access to the terminal when they stop five or six lanes wide to see off passengers.

There are, however, some issues that will take serious thinking before they can be solved. Toilets come to mind, of course, but there are more, some more drastic than others. Let's start with minor issues:

The walkways between terminal and carparks are made of steel, with water-drainage notches. When you push your luggage trolley, and it passes on one of these notches, your trolley will be blocked abruptly in the same way it is secured during transfers on rolling inclined walkways. Very unsettling and potentially dangerous.

The carpark is confusing, with the arrows pointing upwards on the down ramps.

Passenger-traffic management is non-existent at immigration, with one section having 20- to 30-minute queues and the next totally empty (both outbound and inbound).

But there are more serious problems:

The airport is advertised as being very spacious, but if you look at the arrivals hall, it is very difficult to walk out after the customs check, because with the hotel representatives, the official and non-official limousine and taxi providers and friends and relatives picking up passengers, the narrow area is totally congested.

The Thai Airways (THAI) business-class lounge is claimed to be the biggest, but finding a seat is mission impossible, as the arrangement is very inconvenient and the seats huge. I am quite sure there is less sitting capacity than in the combined THAI lounges at Don Muang.

The main concourse/shopping arcade is actually stuffy, because of the low-hanging ceiling and alleys invaded by product displays and expensive cafes. Staff returning the trolleys have to fight their way through the crowd.

Air-conditioning is too weak, with insufficient air circulation and important temperature differences as you walk through the concourse, with some places unpleasantly hot.

Bus gates are still used for many regular flights, and they manage to be even worse than at Don Muang, with a 2-metre-wide door leading to a 1-metre-wide stair, and up to four airport buses at one time trying to process their load through this narrow passage.

In all, the new airport turns out to be a worse passenger experience than Don Muang, and most unnerving is that it feels there was no consideration given to the fact that the building is supposed to process large numbers of people with luggage in the fastest and least unpleasant way. What we have instead is another beautiful expensive shopping mall.

ED

Bangkok

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Low-cost carriers may fare better at Don Muang

 The wishes of the budget airlines to move back to Don Muang shows just how different low-cost air travel has to be in order to achieve viability. Full-service carriers with different fare structures can just about factor in high airport charges and the extra costs of sitting in a queue for 30 minutes waiting for take-off.

Budget airlines are quite different animals. They need to spend most of their time in the air to make money, and even 40 minutes for a turn-round is 10 minutes too long. Neither [type of carrier] needs some monolithic agency appointed by the airport authority to provide the handling. These carriers were conceived much later than Suvarnabhumi, and business has changed much in the many years in which the new airport has lingered on to its final opening.

But whatever the arguments, it's the customers who have to decide, and Suvarnabhumi may need the competition from airlines that choose Don Muang for their operation.

It's quite apparent from the numerous criticisms of Suvarnabhumi in its early days that something has to be done to raise standards. If that means a few red faces, then so be it. Competition has to blow hot, not cold.

David Prescott

Bangkok