Paramilitary use of signal jammers
Jammers saw extensive use during WWII, when Nazis jammed Allied radio transmissions in occupied Europe, and only grew in popularity through the Cold War era. The Soviet Union and China jammed various incoming signals, Cuba blocked American radio stations, and North and South Korea jammed each other's transmissions.
The Russians reportedly used this tech to interfere with low-altitude U.S. surveillance drones in the Syrian conflict in 2018; it's unclear whether this caused them to crash or simply veer off course.
There have also been reports of Russia using powerful jammers gps along its eastern border, leading to disruption in Latvia's phone system and loss of GPS signal to aircraft in the area.Closer to home, jammers have become a very popular tool among Mexican drug cartels.
Small commercially-available drones have been used to surveil territory, especially at night with the aid of thermal cameras. They have also been weaponized to drop explosives on targets, a tactic that has previously been used by ISIS and other terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
As a result, cartel members have been seen wearing man-portable signal jammers that can interfere with nearby drone uplinks as well as cellular and radio comms.
Whether it be a class, presentation, or religious service, phone calls can be a huge disruption if they come at the wrong time. A cellphone signal jammer can prevent these calls from coming in the first place.
The unfortunate reality of any large group is that telling people to silence their devices doesn’t work. There is always a substantial minority of people who leave their devices on for one reason or another.
We can debate whether this illustrates some bigger issue about society or not but it remains true regardless. Even funerals are not exempt from the odd phone call breaking up the silence or prayers.
Whatever the circumstances, a signal jammer can jam up the frequencies cells need to receive calls, preventing phones from ringing out (since the call won’t come through to begin with).