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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> more effective to just install a cell phone jammer in the schools

It would be very difficult to engineer this to not jam cell phones just beyond school property. (You’d also need federal approval. Banning is easier.)

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> It would be very difficult to engineer this to not jam cell phones just beyond school property

Most schools are set back a fair ways from the street, with lawns and playgrounds. I doubt it would be that difficult. Or one could use jammers with an effective range of 30 or 40 feet and have several of them to flesh out the coverage.

> You’d also need federal approval

Yup.

Here in Germany, most stores have effective zero cell reception immediately once you enter in the store and everything is normal once you are near the exit. In stores where people can order online, they offer free wifi(sometimes). I can see a similar approach in schools.

> most stores have effective zero cell reception

Is this intentional or a consequence of closed brick construction?

I think it has to do with the building, perhaps there is a Faraday cage caused by the copper net layer in the walls. From a similar experience, the doorstep of my apartment is really close to my other 2 neighbours (ground floor), and they all have WiFi routers above the entrance, inside — it was very hard to connect and use Wifi in the house on 2.4GHz due to the bandwidth, even if I changed the channels manually, so I was forced to buy a 5GHz router to circumvent the shortage. Also, my LTE doesn't work at all at my doorstep, so it's pretty apparent.

This is a highly questionable statement without any proof.

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