CDCR Cell Phone Blocking Antennas

[GrumpyGuard]

I will comment on the on-topic parts of this thread here. My other views will be on the other thread...

Ok, so let me get this straight. This company, Global Tel-Link is installing this restrictive system, then ALSO running the inmate phone system? Has anyone here ever used Global Tel-Link? I have. A good friend of mine spent a couple of months in the joint, and his only way to communicate with his family and I was through the inmate phone system run by (you guessed it) Global Tel-Link. Any idea how much a local phone call cost? Try upwards of $1 per minute. A 10 minute call to the next town over costs $10. At the same time, companies out there are offering international calling to anywhere in the world for 1 cent per minute. 99 times cheaper for me to call Italy right now. And nobody sees a problem there? I'm not on either side, inmate or officer. You screw up, you do time, it's your fault. But, to make them (or more appropriately their friends and family) pay outrageous amounts of money just to talk to their mother is absolutely ridiculous! No wonder the inmates are stuffing Androids up their rears, it's cheaper! But alas, the government in it's infinite wisdom will allow this to happen, and nobody will care. Why? It's only a few lousy scumbag inmates!

You are spot on about the cost of the call per minute. These phone companies are gouging the people that can afford it the least while the CDCR wants families to stay connected. Under the new contract (refer the SB 26) the cost of inmate phone calls should be between $0.50 to $6.50 for a 15 minute collect call. The upper end is still way to high of a price for most to afford.

 

[jrholm]

Not true at all.

Okay, I was slightly off. Had to go back and double check. Because I work more local than state...

4575. (a) Any person in a local correctional facility who possesses a wireless communication device, including, but not limited to, a cellular telephone, pager, or wireless Internet device, who is not authorized to possess that item is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000).

My county does not authorize ANYONE to possess a wireless device within their jails.

At the state level there has to be an intent to pass the device along to an inmate

4576. (a) Except as otherwise authorized by law, or when authorized by either the person in charge of the prison or other institution under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or an officer of the institution empowered to give that authorization, a person who possesses with the intent to deliver, or delivers, to an inmate or ward in the custody of the department any cellular telephone or other wireless communication device or any component thereof, including, but not limited to, a subscriber identity module (SIM card) or memory storage device, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000) for each device, or both that fine and imprisonment.

 

[aquaregia]

Jamming, BTS, AMS, etc.

This all started because I mistakenly believed CDCR was blindly jamming signals (which others on the Northeast have tried, to obvious effect.) I was wrong in that assumption. As a HAM, anything that disrupts spectrum is and always will be my business. That being said, the reason I call it a rogue BTS is because it IS a rogue BTS (a BTS not installed by the respective provider.) Call it whatever you want, access management , if they have the proper FCC certs, I have no problem with them doing that.

Honestly, there is nothing new here, nothing OpenBTS, a few yagis, and an amp can't provide. The reason I brought up GlobalTel is because they are the one's charging defense contractor prices on somthing so stupid.

On another note, I love the logic that "You don't understand corrections. They can get anything in." That may be true, but it speaks volumes on the people who are employed by such institutions. I don't hear much about guns being smuggled into prisons.

 

[phillydjdan]

You are spot on about the cost of the call per minute. These phone companies are gouging the people that can afford it the least while the CDCR wants families to stay connected. Under the new contract (refer the SB 26) the cost of inmate phone calls should be between $0.50 to $6.50 for a 15 minute collect call. The upper end is still way to high of a price for most to afford.

It's a shame that it took this long for someone to step in and put a stop to the price gouging. It's a start, but it needs to come down more on that upper end. So now that Global Tel-Link just had all their profits taken from them, I suppose they believe this new "managed system" will corner the market for inmate phone calls and make them more money. I'm not saying it's right for an inmate to have a cell phone, just pointing out the slimy business practices of GTL

 

[GrumpyGuard]

On another note, I love the logic that "You don't understand corrections. They can get anything in." That may be true, but it speaks volumes on the people who are employed by such institutions. I don't hear much about guns being smuggled into prisons.

Let me start out by saying most people employed in corrections are good hard working people, but just as in any other profession you get the small percentage that are greedy or have other reasons to come work in as setting as corrections. Gangs actually will groom some members, by not allowing them to get gang tattoo's, and have them keep their record clean so the can infiltrate law enforcement and corrections. Then you have a small percentage that feel they can change society and they get caught up in the games inmates play. There is a book you should read and it is called Games Criminals Play I think you should check it out from your local library as it really gets to the heart of the under current of this thread. When you are locked up and you have nothing better to do than watch people 24 hours a day it will challenge some to see how far they can manipulate people and how much contraband they can have brought in.

As far as the gun issue, some have been smuggled into prisons several have been such as in the following links
Ex-fugitive Denies He Smuggled A Gun Into San Quentin - Philly.com
The Lewiston Daily Sun - Google News Archive Search

People understand that if they smuggle a weapon into the prison setting this weapon can also be used against them. There are more than enough "prison manufactured weapons" that inmates have control over that guns are not a problem yet. Beside the fact that in high level security facilities there are gunners in every housing unit and in towers on the yards. Being in possession of a fire arm would be a death sentence to the inmate.

 

[aquaregia]

Thanks GrumpyGuard for a well thought out response. I know many people that work in all manner of LE and know that sometimes the bad apples make it in. Don't know much about being locked up, but I've seen enough TV shows and History Channel to know that people with way to much time on their hand (by their own choosing) come up with things us civilians could never fathom.

But back to nuts and bolts. You can't force a cell phone to pick a tower. You can trick someone into thinking your "ROGUE" BTS is an AT&T/T-Mobile tower, but anyone with even a cursory understanding of how current cellular works would laugh.

What about CDMA? How many antennas is it going to take? GSM in the US alone spans 4 bands of spectrum. I only ask because of units like Harris puts out, which, one more time, the OpenBTS stack takes care of.