Eric lives in Philadelphia, he rides the 44 bus and he doesn’t like when people talk on their cell phones in public. So he did what any enterprising geek would do: He brought a cell phone jammer on the bus with him.
“A lot of people are extremely loud, no sense of just privacy or anything. When it becomes a bother, that’s when I screw on the antenna and flip the switch,” Eric told NBC10.
The jamming device looks like a walkie-talkie with multiple antennas and works by sending out signals that match frequencies used by cell phones, creating enough interference to interrupt nearby phones’ connections to cell towers.
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While some riders of the 44 bus may have enjoyed a bit of unexpected silence, those who had been trying to use their cell phones weren’t amused. “Every time I see this guy on the bus, I have a mixture of fear and anger. Part of me wants to go up to him and say, ‘Stop doing this, how dare you,’” one passenger told NBC10.
When told by NBC10 investigators that his cell phone jamming device was illegal, Eric responded, “It is my understanding that it is more of a gray area.” However, after a bit more research, he “discovered that what they told him was true and he would dispose of the device.”
Rider Jams Cell Phones on SEPTA Buses [NBC10 Philadelphia via Consumerist]