Plug is pulled on controversial cell-jamming demonstration
A controversial cell-jamming demonstration scheduled for this morning in Washington, D.C., was not conducted, according to an official.
“They did not have the demonstration this morning,” Beverly Young, spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Corrections, said today during an interview with Urgent Communications. “We have no details about a rescheduling at this time.”
The demonstration was supposed to highlight technology from CellAntenna that is designed to jam cell signals. In a Dec. 16 letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, D.C. Department of Corrections Director Devon Brown noted that inmates use contraband cell phones while in custody to “engage in highly pernicious behavior” such as intimidating witnesses and coordinating criminal activity—actions that could be stopped by jamming cell signals.
On Monday, the FCC publicized that it had approved the demonstration, during which CellAntenna was supposed to show that directional jamming could be used to jam cell-phone signals within a detention facility without harming other communication signals in the surrounding area, according to Brown’s letter.
But many in the wireless community believe such jamming technology inadvertently would interfere with communications conducted by users other than inmates. CTIA, the trade association representing U.S. wireless carriers, yesterday submitted a filing with a federal appeals court to block the demonstration, describing the FCC’s order approving the event as “flatly illegal” and the “very essence of arbitrary and capricious agency decision-making.”
While noting the Department of Corrections’ intention to limit jamming only to the walls of its correctional facility—the condition on which the FCC granted the demonstration—CTIA said “there has not been a shred of evidence presented to the commission that the demonstration will not interfere with legitimate uses of the wireless spectrum, including those beyond the facility.”
