Letting prisons jam contraband phones is a bad idea, phone companies tell FCC
SOURCE:Ars Technica|BY:
Jon Brodkin
"Jamming will block all communications," including 911 calls, CTIA tells FCC.
FCC hopes you like jammin’ too
“Jamming will block all communications,” including 911 calls, CTIA tells FCC.
Credit: Getty Images | da-kuk
A Federal Communications Commission proposal to let state and local prisons jam contraband cell phones has support from Republican attorneys general and prison phone companies but faces opposition from wireless carriers that say it would disrupt lawful communications. Groups dedicated to Wi-Fi and GPS also raised concerns in comments to the 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. “The proposed legal framework is based on a flawed factual premise,” AT&T wrote.
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.
Previous FCC leaders recognized the problem that radio jammers can’t differentiate between contraband and legitimate devices, AT&T said. “As explained above, there are no technical workarounds to that limitation with respect to jammers,” AT&T wrote.
“Jammers block all wireless communications”
In 2013, the FCC explained that jamming systems transmit on the same frequencies as their targets in order to disrupt the links between devices and network base stations and that this process “render[s] any wireless device operating on those frequencies unusable. When used to disrupt wireless devices, radio signal jammers cannot differentiate between contraband devices and legitimate devices, including devices making 911 calls. Radio signal jammers block all wireless communications on affected spectrum bands.”
That apparently hasn’t changed. The FCC’s new proposal issued in September 2025 said the commission’s “understanding is that jamming solutions block calls on all affected frequencies and… are unable to allow 911 calls to be transmitted.” But the proposal indicates this may be an acceptable outcome, as “some state DOC [Department of Corrections] officials have indicated that correctional facilities typically do not allow calls from within, including emergency calls.”
If the FCC adopts its plan, it would “authorize, for the first time, non-federal operation of radio frequency (RF) jamming solutions in correctional facilities,” the proposal said.
Carr said in September that previous FCC actions, such as authorizing “contraband interdiction systems” and letting wireless carriers disable contraband phones at a prison’s request, have not been enough. “Contraband cellphones have been pouring into state and local prisons by the tens of thousands every year,” Carr said. “They are used to run drug operations, orchestrate kidnappings, and further criminal enterprises in communities all across the country.”
Carr said that prisons and jails will not be required to install jamming systems and that the FCC “proposes to authorize targeted jamming. Jamming technology can be precise enough that it does not interrupt the regular communications of law enforcement or community members in the vicinity.” The FCC proposal asks the public for comment on “restrictions that might prove necessary to ensure that jamming solutions are limited to this targeted use, and to mitigate the risk that these solutions are deployed in contexts other than a correctional facility environment.”
Jamming has support from 23 state attorneys general, all Republicans, who told the FCC that “inmates routinely use smuggled phones to coordinate criminal enterprises, intimidate witnesses, and orchestrate violence both inside and outside prison walls.” More jamming support came from the state Department of Corrections in both Florida and South Carolina.
Prison phone companies like jamming
Prison phone companies that would financially benefit from increased use of official phone systems also support jamming cell phones. Global Tel*Link (aka ViaPath) called the plan “one more tool to help combat the serious problem of contraband wireless devices in correctional facilities.”
NCIC Correctional Services, another prison phone firm, said that jamming to create “‘dead zones’ within correctional facilities would permit smaller jails to restrict contraband device access where it is not cost-effective to install managed access systems.” Detection Innovation Group, which sells inmate-tracking technology to prisons and jails, also urged the FCC to allow jamming.
Telecom industry groups say that limiting the effect of jamming will be difficult or impossible. The harms identified over a decade ago “remain the same today, although their effects are magnified by the increased use of wireless devices for broadband,” said the Telecommunications Industry Association, a standards-development group. “If an RF jamming solution is deployed at a correctional facility, such deployment risks not only interfering with voice communications but disrupting vital broadband services as well within the facility itself as well as the surrounding community.”
Verizon told the FCC that the Communications Act “requires more restrictive use of jamming devices than the NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] proposes.” The CTIA argued that jamming isn’t necessary because the wireless industry already offers Managed Access Systems (MAS) as “a safe and effective contraband interdiction ecosystem.”
A Managed Access System establishes “a private cellular network that captures communications (voice, text, data) on commercial wireless frequencies within a correctional facility, determines whether that exchange is coming from or going to a contraband device, and, if so, prevents those communications from connecting to the wireless provider’s network,” the CTIA said. “At the same time, MAS allows communications to and from approved devices to be transmitted without interruption, including 911 and public safety calls within the correctional facility.”
Wi-Fi and GPS groups warn of jamming risks
More opposition came from the Wi-Fi Alliance, a tech industry group that tests and certifies interoperability of Wi-Fi products. The FCC proposal failed to “address the potential impact of such jamming on lawfully operating Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices,” the group told the FCC.
The FCC plan is not limited to jamming of phones on spectrum licensed for the exclusive use of wireless carriers. The FCC additionally sought comment on whether contraband devices operating on Wi-Fi airwaves and other unlicensed spectrum should be subject to jamming. That’s concerning to the Wi-Fi Alliance because Wi-Fi operates on unlicensed spectrum that is shared by many users.
“Accordingly, declaring that a jammer on unlicensed spectrum is permitted to disrupt the communications of another device also operating on unlicensed spectrum is contrary to the foundational principle of Part 15 [of FCC rules], under which all unauthorized devices must cooperate in the use of spectrum,” the group said. “Moreover, authorizing the use of jamming equipment in unlicensed spectrum pursuant to Part 15 would undermine decades of global spectrum policy, weaken trust in license-exempt technologies by providing no assurance that devices using those technologies will work, and set a dangerous precedent for the intentional misuse of unlicensed spectrum.”
Letting jammers interfere with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices would effectively turn the jammers into “a de facto licensed service, operating with primary status in bands that are designated for unlicensed use,” the Wi-Fi Alliance said. “To achieve that undesirable result, the Commission would be required to change the Table of Frequency Allocations and issue authorizations for operations on unlicensed spectrum (just as it contemplates for the use of cell phone spectrum in jamming devices). That outcome would upend the premise of Part 15 operations.”
The GPS Innovation Alliance, another industry group, warned that even if the FCC imposes strict limits on transmission power and out-of-band emissions, “jammer transmissions can have spillover effects on adjacent and nearby band operations. Only specialized, encrypted signals, and specialized receivers and devices designed to decrypt those signals, are jam-resistant, in contrast to how most commercial technologies work.”
Now that public comments are in, Carr has to decide whether to move ahead with the plan as originally written, scrap it entirely, or come up with a compromise that might address some of the concerns raised by opponents. The FCC’s NPRM suggests a pilot program could be used to evaluate interference risks before a broader rollout, and the pilot idea received some support from carriers in their comments. A final proposal would be put to a vote of commissioners at the Republican-majority FCC.
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
