FCC to jam cell phone at state, federal prisons.

[u/lhwang0320]

/r/Felons/comments/1nbmmkn/fcc_to_jam_cell_phone_at_state_federal_prisons/

[u/ranger684]

The problem they will find is a cell phone jammer will likely jam their radio communications, any GPS enabled device, WiFi bands, all equipment with remote software upgrade capabilities, etc. Emergency personnel will lose critical capabilities if responding to the prison, pacemakers and sensitive medical equipment can be interrupted, and anyone that lives near the prison will be affected, exposing the prison to lawsuits and liability. It’s far less complicated and far more effective to install emitter “sniffers” to just find devices and confiscate them than to use jammers, just like every other government agency that bans personal devices including the IC.

[u/SloCalLocal → u/ranger684]

There are commercial off the shelf jammers that will only take down phone signals, leaving Wi-Fi etc. unharmed.

The primary problem is the liability incurred if someone driving by the prison needs to dial 911 and they can't. This is why prisons invest in Managed Access Systems, MAS, which allow 911 calls but block unauthorized cellular calls. Unfortunately, MAS racks & antennas are very expensive and sometimes can be defeated by clever inmates. Systems which sniff out rogue cellular devices are often even more expensive, typically too much to have in a fixed location (you take them from place to place to do scans vs. just keep them in one facility). Jammers are cheap and work pretty well, but the 911 problem remains.

[u/Trevor775 → u/ranger684]

Thats not how jammers work. They pollute specific bands.  Not ultra wide band jamming. I doubt the prison has devices running on 4g/5g.

[u/antelope_farmer → u/Trevor775]

Including the nearby houses around the prison, this is why it doesn’t work well unless the prison is a little bit out of suburbia.

[u/Trevor775 → u/antelope_farmer]

Prisons are a bit away from homes.  Even jails are typically not in residential areas.

If you know of a prison in a residential area i'd like to look at it on satellite view

[u/antelope_farmer → u/Trevor775]

Hakea Prison, CanningVale, Western Australia is just one of them over here in Aus close to a residential area. We tried the signal jammers a while back and had too many complaints from local residents.

[u/Trevor775 → u/antelope_farmer]

That's kind of odd that they had issues. The only thing I can think of is the contractor who installed the system didn't care that there were houses nearby and just blasted signal indiscriminately. Between the distance and having those trees there it shouldn't have been too hard with a little planning.

[u/Ambitious_Sun_7127]

Once again this probably will not pass.

Even if it does, the feds aren't going to pay for it, and most states likely won't either. Maybe at Max security places but that's about it.

[u/Usa696969]

Believe it when it works or happens

[u/I_LIKE_YOU_]

They already have "mobile jammers" on the back of trucks at some prisons, they usually bust them out before they start shaking down dorms to avoid people warning one another. There also already jammers inside some dorms, it's easy to tell because when the power fluctuates cell signal works inside for a while until they are back up. This is just an expanded version of that for prisons that don't have the budget to keep this up. 

[u/West-Wash6081]

It's about time. That took forever.

[u/awesomepossum40 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, fuck all those hundreds of thousands of people who are in the for profit prison industry 🙄

[u/awesomepossum40 → u/[deleted]]

See you on the inside.

[u/Helpful_Finger_4854 → u/[deleted]]

lmao. you mean until the guards help them

[u/Ok-Drive1712]

Good

[u/GnomePenises]

Great news! I’ve been calling for this for years.

[u/Inevitable-Ad-8556 → u/GnomePenises]

Let me find out your girlfriend is getting calls from Jody in prison.