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Comment by huytersd | Hacker News Reader

Just have a jammer on school premises and use mac auth for the wifi in addition to the the metal detectors at the entrance.

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The jammer will get you a visit from the friendly people at the FCC.

Much easier to just make your school have some thick walls that prevent cell signals :)

If schools want jammers the FCC will make an exception and guidelines.

you don't need thick, just wrap the school in chicken wire like old houses.

Even if fac/staff had a way around this, it would wreak havoc on parents and other visitors. I can't volunteer at my kid's school if it means I would be unreachable by my other kid's school. Or my spouse/doctor/etc.

I’m not really disagreeing, but - that was absolutely normal and near-universal just 15 years ago.

Yes, people had different ways of dealing with things in the past, but things are different now. I recall seeing a comment on HN last week that said the commenter ignored a call assuming it was spam, and was only alerted to the fact that his kid was in the hospital when someone from the school showed up at his door.

People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish children.

OK, but if you've elevated phones to that level, is it any surprise that 13 and 14 year olds also see them as indispensable?

> People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish children.

Sure. But in this story the school fell back to the "old-fashioned" way and sent someone along to the guy's house. It seems clear that the guy got along just fine without being reachable via telephone.

IIRC the commenter regretted not being reachable by phone, and was cautioning others not to ignore calls that look like spam! But hey, if you think a school will go for cell phone blockers, be sure to try to convince one and let us know how it goes!

> ...if you think a school will go for cell phone blockers...

That's a non-sequitur. My assertion was that the fellow in the story got along just fine without being reachable by phone. He may have regretted how he came to become unreachable by phone, but he received the relevant information in a timely manner.

Sounds illegal.

Very. Jammers would also block emergency calls, which is pretty serious. Imagine the lawsuit when a kid has, say, a diabetic episode and the 911 call was blocked by a teacher's jammer.

teachers/faculty?

Laws?

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