Church fined for blocking cellphones

DAVID HALLET/The Press

BARRED FROM BLOCKING: An Auckland church has been fined for blocking cellphone signals.

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An Auckland church has been fined $1250 after it used a jamming device to prevent mobile phone calls from interrupting services.

Using jamming devices without a licence is illegal.

In August, the Economic Development Ministry also a banned their sale and manufacture.

The ministry says that "while prayers and ceremonies may not have been disturbed by the ringing of mobile phones", the wider community was potentially at risk.

Jamming devices can interfere with reception "hundreds of metres" away, and the ministry says the chance of emergency calls in the vicinity of the Mt Albert church not getting through was significant.

The ministry's radio spectrum compliance manager, Chris Brennan, says it tracked down the jamming device after Vodafone advised it of interference on one of its cellsites.

He understood the church, which he would not name, had been given the jamming equipment.

"We haven't had any backlash. They have accepted they were responsible for what is an offence and appear to have accepted the fine."

A smattering of New Zealand websites and traders on online auction sites were still offering phone jammers for sale last week, priced at about $100, in breach of the Radiocommunications Act.

Mr Brennan says the ministry scrutinises websites, including Trade Me, which did not have any listings last week.

"When we come across these things being offered for supply, we do contact the seller and in some instances we have issued fines for offering to supply them."

The ministry is powerless to prohibit the importation of jammers, which can also be bought online from overseas. "That is something we are trying to change."

But Mr Brennan says that if people are found in possession of them, the presumption under the Radiocommunications Act is that they are being used, and therefore that an offence has been committed.

The Corrections Department is the only organisation licensed to use jamming devices. It has had them since 2007 to prevent the unauthorised use of cellphones in prisons.

The Economic Development Ministry's radio spectrum manager, Brian Miller, says that is the one acceptable use of the technology.

"Outside prisons they are certainly not desirable."

Rules vary widely overseas, with some countries banning outright their use and operation, and others having no regulation.

Some allow the use of jammers in specific institutions, such as prisons, churches, theatres and hospitals.

In China, jammers are used to prevent cheating during exams.

Just Jamming

Cellphone jammers work by sending out signals on the radio frequencies used by mobile phones.

Devices vary in size from handheld units with a range of a few metres to commercial jamming devices that can block phones several kilometres away.