Letting prisons jam contraband phones is a bad idea, phone companies tell FCC

""Jamming will block all communications, not just communications from contraband devices," wireless lobby group CTIA said in December 29 comments in response to Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal. The CTIA said that "jamming blocks all communications, including lawful communications such as 911 calling," and argued that the FCC "has no authority to allow jamming." CTIA members AT&T and Verizon expressed their displeasure in separate comments to the FCC."

"While the Communications Act prohibits interference with authorized radio communications, Carr's plan tries to sidestep this prohibition by proposing to de-authorize certain communications, AT&T wrote. "This legal framework, however, is premised on a fundamental factual error: the assumption that jammers will only block 'unauthorized' communications without impacting lawful uses. There is no way to jam some communications on a spectrum band but not others," AT&T wrote."

The Federal Communications Commission proposed allowing state and local prisons to jam contraband cell phones. Republican attorneys general and prison phone companies support allowing jamming, while wireless carriers and groups representing Wi‑Fi and GPS raise objections. Wireless lobby CTIA and carriers AT&T and Verizon warned that jamming blocks all communications, including emergency 911 calls, and that the Communications Act prohibits interference with authorized radio communications. The proposal would attempt to sidestep the prohibition by de‑authorizing certain communications, but carriers argue there is no technical way for jammers to block only unauthorized devices because jammers transmit on the same frequencies as targeted devices.

Read at Ars Technica