Yes it is.

2.4 GHz is the frequency of WiFi. 5.8 GHz phones obviously wouldn't have the same effect.

As soon as my wife turns on the phone to call or answer, the Tablet loses its connection. I can reconnect when she finishes the call, but not before then.

It's nice for you that your neighbours have made their WLAN invisible (or maybe they don't have WLAN). Others aren't so lucky. You don't have a problem to solve, but others do. The shielding works for me and for some other people who have tried it.

There seem to be two different situations which lead to this problem. In some cases, there are too many AP's being picked up. Other times, it's one particular AP (presumed to be a type n) causing the trouble.

I have no trouble after about 10 pm and before 8 am. Only five or six AP's show up, and I can connect without shielding the 770. During the day, the search picks up page after page of AP's at first, then the screen loses them all and the "No Connections Available" message shows up instead. Shielding the 770 gets over the problem - so far, 100% of the time. It's only during the searching and the connecting that the Tablet has to be shielded - a very short time.