The introduction of mobile telephones into society has created a number of social problems due to the fact that a person with a mobile telephone can be available any time, anywhere. Annoyances have been most notable in public group settings where group silence is essential to the experience or performance taking place. Examples of such experiences or performances are live performances, movie theatres, classrooms, conferences or even fine restaurants. Most people have today experienced the distraction of a ringing telephone during a crucial climax or punch line. Similar annoyances can be foreseen with the introduction of PC-phone applications into the business place, where PC-phone applications may disturb meetings, conferences or presentations.
There are several solutions presented to the problem situation described above. For mobile phones the most recent solution is the vibrating alert which replaces the normal ringing alert on incoming call. For PC-phones and mobile phones there are supplementary services as well, such as: Call forwarding, call diversion, screening and messaging services. In the very least, the user can simply turn off the mobile terminal or close down the PC-application. A problem with these solutions are that they rely on the called party to actively do something to prevent the telephone from ringing. However, experience has shown that, in this respect, one simply cannot rely on private persons to honour the privacy of the group.