Jailers Less Intent on Jamming Amid Industry Dialogue, FCBA Told

Addressing the problem has been one of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s top priorities, noted Patrick Donovan, CTIA senior director-regulatory affairs. Donovan said almost a year ago, players held the first in a series of meetings, which led to the task force's creation (see 1802050034). The meeting was “really an eye opener,” he said. “It was really the first time for wireless carriers, corrections officials and solutions providers to all be in the room at the same time and hash things out.” That led to the start of a series of task force meetings in April (see 1804270062), he said.

At the first meeting, everyone aired grievances, Donovan said. There was “some finger pointing,” he said. “As we started to get to know each and started to have more constructive conversations, the tone kind of shifted.” The four major wireless carriers have since funded a testbed, he said.

Kempf said much has been learned over the last year. “A lot of our members were dead set on jamming,” he said. “Being able to communicate with each other, we’ve learned that that’s not necessarily the answer, it’s certainly not the silver bullet.” Corrections officials learned a lot more about managed access systems, he said: “We’ve learned a lot about each other and some of the difficulties that each of us has.”

The FCC has been under some pressure to allow jamming -- opposed by carriers. Last year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, NTIA and the FCC cooperated on a test of micro-jamming technology at a federal correctional institution at Cumberland, Maryland (see 1801180054).

The FCC has been more focused on managed access. It approved an order in March 2017 designed to streamline use of systems that can be used to disable phones once inside a prison (see 1703020063). The FCC also asked about further steps, in a Further NPRM.

Kempf said the biggest problem is in California and southern states. When he left as the director of corrections in Idaho two years ago, officials found an average of two contraband phones yearly, he said. “It’s just not a big issue, not nearly the issue like it is in California and the southern states.”

The primary focus of the task force has been on the testbed, Donovan said. Two managed-access providers and one jamming provider have worked with the testbed, and testing began in August, he said. The group also worked on expanding the stolen phone database to include contraband phones and explored the possibilities of geofencing for contraband phones, Donovan said. The task force moved faster than expected, he said. The task force last met in New Orleans three weeks ago and plans to release a redacted version of its report, he said.

The testbed has looked at under what circumstances a system works and doesn’t, said Charles Clancy, executive director of the Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech, who has run the testbed. “Were there things you could do on a phone that would somehow bypass … the interdiction technology?” Tests were run on how systems worked with weak and strong cell signals, he said.

Clancy said researchers did field tests at prisons in South Carolina and Texas. “All of this was to really understand, from an operational perspective, how these different technologies stack up,” he said. Jammers are widely seen as inexpensive, but they’re also “a blunt instrument," he said. "It's really difficult to understand whether they’re working or not.” Researchers also looked at cellphone detection technologies and managed-access systems, which prevent prisoners from using their devices, he said. Clancy said researchers found managed-access systems can be effective, requiring “very careful tuning.”

The report will stress the importance of “careful RF and spectrum planning,” Clancy said. The steel and concrete construction of prisons “creates a complicated environment” for all wireless signals, he said. The report emphasizes the importance of “stakeholder coordination” especially on “technology road maps” as new technologies like 5G are deployed, he said: “We heard from prison officials who at one point purchased a system that only supported 3G.” The task force stresses the importance of 911, he said. “If an inmate calls 911, that call has to get through."

Pai expressed his concerns about the danger of contraband devices before he became chairman, including at a 2016 hearing in Columbia, South Carolina (see 1604060058). Charles Mathias, associate chief of the Wireless Bureau, was scheduled to speak but had to cancel because of the backlog of work from the prolonged closure of the FCC.