Why can't I use my jetpack in a hospital?

[brucecomo]

Hi,

While visiting my father in Ellis hospital I tried to use my mifi to provide internet service to my ipad- three times over three days.  The ipad didn't see the mifi.

At first, I thought there was a problem with my mifi, but the mifi/ipad combo worked fine once I got away from the hospital.

How are they blocking my ipad from seeing my mifi?

Thanks for your time.

Bruce

[dimap52]

Hospitals are known to block wi-fi signals due to interference with medical equipment.

[brucecomo]

Thanks.  Any idea how they do it?

[Tidbits]

Jammers. There are certain places throughout a hospital where you can use a cellphone and other similar devices away from sensitive equipment.

[brucecomo]

Thanks

[DOJ2903]

It's not a jammer, it's that they can put in their own local cellular network and thus control the usage to an extent based on network preference.  We have that in our federal buildings, we don't block anything but your data usage goes through our network and thus our DLP solution.

[John_Getzke · Accepted solution]

Jammers are illegal:

http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/jammer-enforcement

When you are in a hospital there is likely too much interference from other medical equipment or similar WiFi devices.  The interference will drown out the signals that you are looking for as well as cause all sorts of performance issues even if you could connect.  This is similar to trying to operate a cell phone or WiFi device in a stadium. There is only so much spectrum allocated to WiFi in the 2.4 Ghz spectrum and way too many people using it for it to be any good to any of them.  That is unless the space has been specifically designed to handle that kind of load.

[brucecomo]

Interesting...

Thanks for the info.

Bruce