Wireless Industry and Corrections Officials Disagree Sharply on FCC's Jamming Proposal

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced at a press conference with Republican officials in Arkansas in September that he would seek such rules, marking a sharp departure from long-standing commission policy (see 2509050055). At the time, he said he planned to have new rules in place in 2026.

CTIA noted in its filing that “a broad and diverse group of commenters -- ranging from the aviation, public safety, and alarm industries to the satellite and Wi-Fi communities -- has expressed genuine concerns.” No commenter so far offers any evidence that jamming “can avoid blocking legitimate communications,” the group said. Managed access systems and other contraband interdiction systems are “lawful and effective,” while jamming is “unlawful and dangerous.”

Public Knowledge said it stands with CTIA, AT&T, the Wi-Fi Alliance and others who oppose jamming. It questioned whether the FCC has the authority to allow the practice under the Communications Act. Section 303(m)(1)(E), “a provision as old as the Act itself,” prohibits any licensee “from interfering with ‘any’ radio signal -- authorized or not.” The group also said that under an evolving U.S. Supreme Court doctrine, an FCC order would likely violate the major questions test. The commission “here claims a new power -- to declare otherwise legal signals unauthorized and subject to jamming.”

AT&T said the proposed approach to jamming in the FCC's further NPRM could “cause substantial collateral damage,” and jamming advocates don’t really address those risks. They assert -- “without providing technical evidence -- that legitimate communications and a jammer’s radius will never intersect, and thus the Commission need not be concerned with the potential for harmful interference to lawful operations,” the carrier said.

Before the FCC hands down revised rules, AT&T urged the agency to launch a pilot program to test whether jammers can be “deployed with such precision that they will completely avoid all public safety and lawful communications taking place in and near correctional facilities.”

The Correctional Leaders Association fired back at the wireless industry, saying the objections are based on arguments that are more than a decade old. They don’t reflect “advancements in micro-jamming and precision technologies described in the record,” the association said. The commission should evaluate “current technologies based on present-day capabilities and … not simply take the wireless industry’s assertions at face value.” The record also shows that managed access systems aren’t a “sufficient solution,” and “hundreds of heinous crimes” have been committed using contraband cellphones, “including in facilities employing” those systems, the group said.

ViaPath Technologies likewise argued that states have demonstrated that “current technologies are not enough to stem the flow of contraband wireless devices.”

Among other groups raising objections, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials warned of the risks of blocking lawful wireless calls to 911 from corrections staff and the public. Public safety radios, including those operating in the 700 and 800 MHz bands, “could experience interference from mechanisms used to block spectrally-nearby cellular signals.”

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group said the FNPRM doesn’t “adequately address how Part 15 operations can be jammed consistent with the longstanding principles governing unlicensed operations.”

A pilot program would help the FCC sort out what’s technically possible, said High Tech Forum President Richard Bennett. The FNPRM “asks a plethora of questions that demonstrate the wealth of unknowns regarding detailed implementation of micro-jamming techniques,” he said. The field of micro-jamming is also “quite abstract, consisting more of theory and speculation than of empirical data.”