Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency will vote November 19 on rules that would let correctional facilities obtain licenses to operate equipment that blocks cellphone signals. The proposal would open a path for prisons to jam wireless service inside their walls, an authority that is currently barred in most cases under Section 333 and the Communications Act of 1934.
Carr said contraband phones have been entering prisons in large numbers and that some inmates have used them to arrange killings, direct gang activity and support criminal operations. He noted that jamming has already been allowed at certain federal facilities. The agency's draft language describes two licensing paths, both of which would require applicants to meet technical standards and testing requirements.
Under the proposal, facilities would first need to test under an experimental license to show that a jamming system does not cause harmful interference outside a designated geographic area. After a license is granted, further testing would take place at the correctional facility before operations begin. Jamming would be confined to a Commission-authorized "jamming containment area" where wireless device use is prohibited, and it could not cause harmful interference beyond that zone.
Carriers, FirstNet, public safety coordinators and 911 authorities would be notified in advance of on-site testing, and nearby communities would be told before deployment. When the FCC approved a draft proposal last year, Commissioner Anna Gomez proposed starting with a pilot program to assess effects on surrounding areas. She said that while the underlying problem is critically important, she was concerned about unintended consequences of allowing non-federal entities to jam signals and of letting jamming equipment formally enter the American market.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, who was present where the vote was announced, and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr are among the law enforcement officials who have pushed for the change. Anonymous incarcerated journalists have argued the effort responds to their use of phones to send uncensored accounts of civil rights violations to news outlets quickly enough to prevent cover-ups. They pointed to a 2024 DOJ investigation into Georgia's prisons that documented horrific and inhumane conditions, following evidence first sent out via contraband phones.
Legislative efforts are also underway, including the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act of 2025, introduced last year by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
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