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FCC Issues Forfeiture Notices to Two Business for Jamming Cellular Frequencies
An anonymous reader writes "The FCC, responding to anonymous complaints that cell phone jamming was occurring at two businesses, investigated and issued each a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture and Order (NAL). You can read the details of the investigation and calculation of the apparent liability in each notice below. Businesses engaged in similar illegal activity should note the public safety concerns and associated fines. From the article: 'The FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture and Order to each business: The Supply Room received an NAL in the amount of $144,000 (FCC No. 13-47), while Taylor Oilfield Manufacturing received an NAL in the amount of $126,000 (FCC No, 13-46).'"
Seems like a LOT of businesses do this, unless it's a coincidence that I lose service right after stepping inside tons of different stores.
Why don't they just put a damn payphone in each place and leave us in peace to eat or be entertained instead of being interrupted by some idiot yammering on and on with his/her stupid little talking device?
?? As opposed to yammering on and on with his/her dinner companion?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Cell phone conversations are more annoying to people because our brains keeps trying to figure out the other end of the conversation, and make the conversation seem louder. http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/2013/03/18/study-proves-that-overhearing-others-phone-conversations-annoying/tmCr9o4wDLm7dmGfdybnYN/story.html
Waits for the first 911 blocked lawsuit to happen in 5, 4, 3 ...
Bye!
There's a distinct and audible difference in the normal murmur of a restaurant that easily blends into a sea of ignorable noise.
A person speaking on a cell phone however, easily elevates above the steady noise level and is distinct and highly irritating to many. Do you really feel that it's too much to ask folks to go to a lobby area or step outside to take their call if it's so important?
After 35 years of living in South Florida where everyone you encounter is self-entitled, rude and generally uncaring of their impact on others, we moved to a far quieter, calmer, place where manners prevail and folks care more about those around them. In restaurants, children are generally well behaved, people mostly take calls in the lobby or outside. Is it really so much to ask that people show this level of common courtesy in other locales? Is being in a polite society such a horrid thing to you?
is it really so terrible for people to hope for a place where interactions are between people instead of devices?
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
In the U.S., you can apply for a permit from the FCC to use jammers. The issue here is that these companies did not, but were jamming anyways.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
The study you quote did not draw the conclusion you assert.
"We didn't study why cellphone conversations are more distracting,"
The difference could easily have been tonal or volume differences of one person on a cell phone versus two people speaking face to face. They stated that they need to do further research to find the cause.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
There are devices on the market that block cell traffic except for 911 calls.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Sure, but you have to be the CIA to get one.
-- 4 were in active use at the time of inspection / catching them
-- 1 was a "backup" in storage at the time
-- both were investigated because of an "anonymous call"
I think it's more likely that the FCC started investigating those companies which had done business with the overseas supplier of the cell phone jammers. Wouldn't that make more sense than "anonymous" tipsters?
Are you sure? I did a little research and found this:
http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf
"Jamming devices, however, are ineligible to receive a grant of equipment authorization
from the FCC or an FCC ID. (The FCCâ(TM)s Office of Engineering and Technology oversees
the authorization of non-jamming equipment that uses the radio frequency spectrum.
More information is available at http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/equipmentauthorization.) "
Perhaps you've heard of a Faraday cage?
... there are some important details
Build a metal box, approximately
RF doesn't get through.
You can stop RF. It's not that hard. And, you don't need to break the law to do it.
Jammers are illegal in the US. Period.
Unfortunately, the FCC licensing of the spectrum removes the meat of that claim. If the spectrum is publicly owned, the public shouldn't have to pay for licenses to use it however it sees fit. This is similar to socialist countries calling themselves "The Peoples' Republic of...". On paper it's true, but in reality, it's not. If the spectrum were truly open, it would be chaos; completely unusable for all but local communications.
It's the cell customers who are creating a public disturbance with the cell carriers' service and license. If the store is popular, asking people one at a time to hang up takes up too much time. Passive signs don't work either. The best way to handle it is to jam, preferably with a passive 'faraday cage' when possible. If not, then low power jammers should be used. If customers want to use their phones, they have to go outside. If they don't like losing service while shopping, they can go elsewhere.
If you don't want people talking on cell phones in your restaurant, then post a sign saying no cell phones and kick people out who disobey.
Don't frickin pollute the already crowded electromagnetic spectrum with a white noise generator, grow a damn spine.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Not that any business could buy.
They are part of the cellular infrastructure.
Bad thing about a lot of these jammers is they don't just affect cellular but also the 700 and 800 MHz spectrum used by public safety - firefighters and police. There have been jammers seized by LE where they got out on traffic stops and their radios started showing out of range.
The problem is the jamming doesn't stop at their walls and can negatively affect people who have the right to use their cellphones. Under the part 15 requirements issued by the FCC, (1) this device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
In my movie theatre, that's exactly what I do. I have a "turn cell phones off" sign in my lobby, and I play a policy trailer saying the same thing (within a little cartoon) before every show. After that, if I see the light from your phone I'll ask you once to turn it off. The second time I'll ask you to come to the lobby with me, and will show you the door when you get there.
I have very little trouble with cell phones in my theatre.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
The issue is that jammer signals are not restricted to the building they are in. Radio waves will spill out and cause interference with cell phones of people who have nothing to do with the business owning the jammers.
In contrast to typical land-line phones, cell phones have no "side-tone". Side-tone is the portion of the audio signal from the microphone routed to the receiver (earpiece). By having side-tone we have feedback relating to how loud we're talking and the signal going to the other end. Without the side-tone, there is a natural tendency to talk louder. I don't know why cell phone designers have not incorporated side-tone. The amount of power it would consume is very small.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
What happened before modern medicine was invented?
If someone dies you can't say "Well, once upon a time they would have died anyways so its not a problem."
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I'm an RF engineer. The device that can decode 2G (GSM and CDMA) , 3G, and LTE signals, understand which are 911 and block the rest, is called a celltower.
The radios and brains to do all three consistently correctly for the full bandwidth of available spectrum would be a toy with a price tag comfortably into the 5 digit range.
Fault 1: You assume any conversation I have with my table companions must be obnoxious laughing?
Fault 2: you assume you cannot have a conversation with your distant loved ones from a quieter spot such as the lobby or outside where you hear them better and they hear you better and you do not generate irritation in the room around you?
You sir, seem to have some latent hostility creeping out.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
By way of an alternative that won't get you into trouble, I was told once by a Telstra RF tech that one of the most intractable problems he had encountered with cellphone reception had been in a small pine forest. Apparently (he supposed) the pine needles form some sort of diffraction grating that make reception really difficult.
"I think cell phone jamming should be legal."
If you have an indoor business, there is absolutely no reason to "jam" signals. You can block and ground them instead with a Faraday cage. Just make sure your walls and ceilings are lined with chickenwire (should work fine for cell phone frequencies), and make sure it is all grounded. Voila. Cell phone no worky.
There is a very big difference between BLOCKING cell phone signals and jamming them. Blocking is legal. Jamming is not.
What do you mean "that way it's their choice"? Are you somehow forced to use your phone a second time? If you simply can't resist the temptation to answer then there's an off button or airplane mode that comes standard on every phone. As for being cheated - if the policy clearly states that obnoxious people will be asked to leave then you had fair warning as to the consequences of your actions, and even one personal warning in response to your obnoxiousness is being generous, after all YOU (as the person using their phone) are the one being rude, and your rudeness is impacting every single person within earshot or line-of-sight.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It doesn't matter. The jammer is transmitting on a licensed band of which the operator is not the licensee. That alone is illegal in any licensed band irrespective of the jammer part.
this is my sig
Why do people think that doctors run around in random places, poised to react to an EMERGENCY by answering their cell phones and running out the door? It doesn't happen. If your services are that critical, you're there at the hospital. If you need to be called in, the system has already been designed to deal with lack of contact / delayed contact.
Everybody calm down and take a Xanax. It's OK to be disconnected from your cell phone. It's a communication device, not a piece of life support equipment.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think its time to dedicate a very narrow-band low-frequency for a polite "bit." Any business should be able to apply to purchase a transmitter with a 25-foot radius that sets cell devices to silent or vibrate. Perfect for restaurants and theaters, yet it still allows people to use their devices.
No, I will not work for your startup
I have simply grabbed a cell phone away from a kid who is using it during the show if his parents aren't around. Then I keep it at my front counter until the parents come and ask for it back when the show is over. That's happened two or three times over 20 years, so it's pretty rare. I've done the same with little flashlights, laser pointers, and chemical glow sticks, too, and probably more often.
As far as your "good riddance" comment... yeah, that's pretty much it. It's my theatre, my personal property in fact, and my rules apply. If you don't like my rules, you're welcome to go to any other theatre. I suspect that some people do exactly that, and it's absolutely fine with me. Really.
The teenagers here know how things work -- I occasionally overhear one telling the other to turn his or her phone off.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Did you read the comment? He has a sign outside and plays a policy trailer. That's advanced warning, twice.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
Maybe that's Karma telling you to hang up and drive, Mr. More Dangerous Than A Drunkard.
If I was the offender, and I was subjected to the humiliation of being publicly kicked out, as well as being cheated out of the money I paid for my ticket, everyone would know about it and I'd feel much too ashamed and angry to ever come back.
Well, good. If you're the kind of asshat who thinks using a phone in a movie is a great idea then you're not going to change your mind because there's been plenty of opportunity to do that.
You might think "good riddance", and believe that permanently alienating cell phone "abusers" is a public service. But I think your policy is needlessly rude.
It is a public service and throwing one person out of the film is much less rude than one person runining the film for many.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The 'simple' solution to this problem isn't tin foil or expensive infrastructure replacements. Its a simple low frequency signal that all cell phones read which tells them that all outgoing phones are to be disabled baring specific hardware enforced overrides (like 911 service for example). All phone sellers will immediately embrace it if there was a law in the US (even a single large state's law maybe).
Delightful. Because our damn batteries weren't bad enough, we get to suck 'em dry faster for the sake of handing over even more control of "our" hardware to some self-serving corporate scumbag.
Yes, it's a major inconvenience in modern society, but 20 years ago nobody would have cared because nobody had a cell phone. The amount of people dying because 911 couldn't be called hasn't significantly changed since, or the research indicating just that would be all over the news all the time and nobody in the their right mind would think of blocking cell phone reception.
Except, 20 years ago, there probably would've been payphones in the lobby right outside the theater. Where's the nearest phone now? Snack bar? Manager's office? Where is the manager's office? Not that I in general disagree with you, but I'm just pointing out a flaw in the argument you're making.
Were you alive and using a phone in the 1960s? I doubt it. Back then, connections were all analog and the sound quality was stellar. Deregulation, fragmentation, cost-cutting, the advent of digital, the lowered expectations of cell phone users have allowed ALL phone transmission quality to decline. But if you're old enough to remember, you know that those rotary-dial phones with the 30-foot handset cords (so you could be mildly mobile within your home) and the system that backed them up produced high-quality sound relative to the crap we put up with today.
Hell, I'm still pissed that I had to give up my outdated StarTac when the cell technology changed. Cell call sound quality was acceptable before that. Now it's all crap, all the time.
2.4GHz is not unregulated, it's unlicensed. There's significant amounts of regulation on how you're allowed to transmit on that band, including maximum power. Go read 47 CFR 15C.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Because it would be impractical to expect businesses to do a decent job of checking just how far their jammer causes problems. What'll happen is they'll install a jammer, throw a couple of signs on their front door, and call it a day. Meanwhile the businesses on either side that don't want jamming have lost their signals, as well as a random swath of the parking lot, nearby road, etc. The entire reason these businesses were discovered was because the jamming wasn't limited to their premises. The fact that the FCC had to triangulate their location implies that the complaints were not of a "Business XYZ is jamming my cell" nature, but more of a "somebody on this block is jamming my cell".
Jammers would probably not be illegal if they respected property boundaries. I totally agree that you should be allowed to do what you like on your property. But you may *not* do what you like on *my* property. Running a jammer on yours will likely kill the signal on mine. So install any passive blocking you like. Once you go active and affect people around you, that's where you're stepping outside the bounds of personal freedom. Using your example you say that people may die due to the small delay while someone steps outside or disables the jamming device. But what about situations where your location isn't the one doing the jamming? Does stepping outside get you closer or further from the jammer? There certainly will be no way to disable the device since you have no idea who's even running it. That small delay suddenly can get pretty significant...