Signal jamming devices are used in many applications

In recent years, the number of websites offering “cell jammers” or similar devices designed to block communications and create a “quiet zone” in vehicles, schools, theaters, restaurants, and other places has increased substantially. While these devices are marketed under different names, such as signal blockers, GPS jammers, or text stoppers, they have the same purpose

The makers of precision-guided munitions no longer take for granted that simple GPS-guidance systems will always work on their own. Cell phone signal jammer and spoofing equipment threaten to populate future battlefields; manufacturers have taken notice and answered the threat.

The military and its industry partners have various means fielded and in development to ensure that bombs hit their targets, whether that means redundant targeting systems like seekers that target GPS jammers, laser-guidance systems or camera-aided navigation.

Put simply, a gsm jammer broadcasts noise such that GPS receivers in their vicinity — which rely on weak signals from distant satellites — are overwhelmed and lose the actual GPS signal. If a precision-guided bomb, a minute away from hitting its target, loses the lock, the results could be disastrous.

Fifteen years ago, jammers were considered expensive equipment most common to governments or nation states. But now low-cost, low-powered jammers are everywhere, riding the wave of cheap, reliable consumer electronics like Wi-Fi routers and smartphones. Although military GPS systems are more resilient than their commercial cousins, there is no 100 percent guarantee, particularly against a high-powered jammer.

North Korea is apparently active jamming GPS signals using truck-mounted systems that overrun signals coming from tracking satellites. South Korea is unable to pinpoint the locations of these jammers because the Army runs them for about ten minutes at a time and then moves them.

However, the news agency reported that the company’s promotional literature specifically mentions tensions between the United States and Iraq as one situation in which the jammers could help a country overcome a militarily superior force.