Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency will vote Nov. 19 on rules that would let state prisons apply for licenses to jam cellphone signals inside correctional facilities^1,2.

The announcement came Wednesday in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to SC Daily Gazette². Carr said contraband phones have been used to order hits, coordinate gang activity and aid criminal enterprises¹. Radiofrequency jammers are generally banned under Section 333 of the Communications Act of 1934, with limited exceptions that already cover some federal facilities^1,2.

If the proposal is adopted, state officials could apply to the FCC for permission to jam, Carr said². The draft would require experimental-license testing to show the system does not cause harmful interference outside a designated "jamming containment area," plus more testing at the facility before operations start¹. Carriers, FirstNet, public-safety coordinators and 911 authorities would get advance notice of on-site tests, and nearby communities would be notified before deployment¹.

South Carolina Corrections Director Joel Anderson, who attended the Arkansas event, said he plans to seek permission for the state's 21 prisons². "This change will make all of America safer," Anderson said in a statement reported by SC Daily Gazette². Legislators there spent $18.5 million over two years on systems that track phones inside prisons, then ask carriers to disable numbers one by one².

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr have backed the change^1,2. Griffin said prisoners have used phones to commit violent crimes². The Verge reported that anonymous incarcerated journalists argue the campaign also targets phones used to send uncensored accounts of civil-rights violations to news outlets, pointing to a 2024 Justice Department finding of unconstitutional conditions in Georgia prisons after evidence moved through contraband phones¹.

When the FCC advanced a draft last year, Commissioner Anna Gomez said she worried about unintended consequences of letting non-federal actors jam and bringing jamming equipment into the U.S. market, and she suggested starting with a pilot¹. Carr said the technology can be limited to certain buildings². "This isn't going to be a silver bullet at the end of the day," Carr said, according to SC Daily Gazette².

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act of 2025, a separate legislative track¹. Whether the Nov. 19 vote finalizes licenses, and how interference testing would work in practice, remains to be seen^1,2.