In front of the Nokia factory in Bochum, Thursday (Ina Fassbender / Reuters)
Sullied by the telephone conversation of a passenger who screams his “private” life in front of a whole wagon? Two solutions open to you: gently tap on the shoulder to signify your annoyance or, more treacherously, cut him off by activating a cell phone jammer.
Called “cell phone jammer” in the United States, jammers send waves that prevent the laptop from connecting to the network. This, within a radius of five meters for the smallest, to several hundred meters for the devices intended for the police.
An act punishable by a fine of 450 euros in France, where only penitentiary centers and theaters are allowed to equip “radio facilities making inoperable mobile phones. “(Article L33-3 and 39-2 of the Post and Electronic Communications Code)
Provider of twenty French prisons, Pierre-Yves Daumas and his company Magnum Telecom, also delivered individuals until they receive a warning letter from the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) in December 2007 :
And, as evidenced by the application emails received by the company, parents are not the only ones to have easy scrambling. A teacher wants to “limit unwanted inconvenience of laptops during classes (in any discretion of course). A university professor says “tired of laptop pumps by students” during exams.
Other types of clients: the operating room of a clinic, doctors ‘offices indisposed by customers’ laptops, a pharmacy, construction companies wanting to “prevent the driver / operator from being distracted by calls during his service” , a sales representative who wants to be quiet during his appointments, a restaurant owner, Mexican banks …
Public authorities are not left out. The deputy mayor of a small French town specifies his needs:
The goal is to prevent communications during ceremonies and commemorations in places without power (theater, cemetery chapel, veterans monument, emergency medical center …) ”
The French law enforcement agencies would use jammers before investing an apartment to prevent people from communicating with the outside or, during an arrest, to prevent “young people” call their friends back.
After the anti-young sound devices, an individual invents the “zone without a cellphone”, so, in his reasoning, without young people:
I would like to try this device at my parents’ house, who are constantly bored with gangs of young people who stay afternoons and evenings next to their homes. I think if their cell phones stopped working for a while, it would cause them to change a bit of a corner. ”
The risk ? See disembark ANFR agents warned by the telephone operator who noticed the interference. What happened in January 2006 to this boss of an agro-food industry:
»I bought a device around the month of May, it is very effective. So much so that I have just been spotted by the high frequency authority. (…) When I saw a blue CRS van, with smoked windows, equipped with a multitude of antennas on the roof, I immediately understood. Anyway, they promised me to receive a mail with a small plum of 450 euros. ”
Another scenario: scrambled for their lack of civility in November 2007, the high school students of Sainte-Marie du Port, the Sables d’Olonnes suddenly acquire an unexpected civic sense, as told, a little disappointed, their headmaster:
“The biggest market for telephone jammers in France are the mosques,” says Pierre-Yves, who provided twenty mosques and some synagogues:
They light them during prayer, then leave them off the rest of the time. ”
A novelty that singularly annoys the GR, tells the point of December 20:
The RG are worried that they will no longer be able to secretly record Islamic sermons in prayer halls. A recent internal memo warns that more and more mosques are using jammers to prevent undercover police from using their cell phones to record preaching. ”
The Catholic Church prefers, she, “trust the civility of the faithful, who come to collect themselves and extinguish their cell phone when entering,” says the Conference of Bishops. Or perhaps the average age of the practicing population?