3G Phones Bypass Jammers in Indian Parliament

A failure in the specifications for equipment designed to block mobile phones working inside the Indian Parliament resulted in 3G based phones starting to work last week after MTNL installed a 3G base station in the vicinity of the building.

The mobile phone jammers were only designed to block GSM and CDMA phones operating in the mainstream 800, 900 and 1800Mhz bands - but did not jam the 2.1Ghz bands used by 3G networks. As many mid to high end phones are dual mode GSM/3G, they started connecting to the 3G base station as soon as it was switched on.

However, some politicians have used the issue to demand closer cooperation between government departments, claiming that the failure of the Parliament authorities to specify its hardware correctly was an example of political failure.

Rajya Sabha member and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, who had drawn the attention of the chair when mobile phones rang in the House, said, "It clearly shows that basic coordination is lacking on security matters. There should have been proper coordination between the government departments concerned before making such services available to the public ,"

The jammers have subsequently been upgraded to block 3G phones as well.

Posted to the site on 5th January 2009