FCC ALLOWS PRISON TEST OF WAY TO MANAGE CELL CALLS INSTEAD OF JAMMING

摘要

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology issued a two-day experimental license to test technology allowing officials to control wireless calls made in prisons, as an alternative to jamming the signals. Tests by Tecore Networks are scheduled Thursday at a prison in Jessup, Md. Six other vendors will also demonstrate technologies at the prison during a day-long event. Amit Malhotra, Tecore's vice president of marketing, said the company uses proprietary technology that creates a self-contained network within the prison that serves as a unified gateway to carrier networks. Outgoing calls go through the system, allowing corrections officials to determine whether they can be completed or should be held. "If jamming is approved, there's a potential for it to proliferate and that essentially creates a huge headache for the carriers," Malhotra said. nn" While they're mandated by the FCC to provide and have billions of dollars in rights to do that just through the purchase of the licenses, they have to contend with holes in coverage they're not responsible [for]," Malhotra said. He said the company estimates that as many as 27,000 cellphones were in use behind prison bars last year and each was used by up to 10 inmates. The technology that Tecore has developed allows the management of calls within a prison, which is different from jamming, "which just blocks any and all calls," said Brian Josef, CTIA's director of regulatory affairs. "We have been on the record in support of exploring these technologies, not only managed access like the Tecore technology, but also cell detection technologies, which enable law enforcement to detect, locate and ultimately grab those contraband phones," Josef said.