Hunting for Radio Frequency Interference

RF interference could be causing your dropped calls. Engineers from P3 hunt down the source and shut it off: Every day, Kevin Argentieri tracks down devices that are causing radio-frequency interference, and then tries to persuade their owners to shut them off.

Argentieri works for P3, a company that performs radio-frequency interference hunting for nationwide carriers including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. American carriers pay big bucks to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for exclusive licenses to swaths of the radio-frequency spectrum.

But rogue devices are out there, and it’s Argentieri’s job to find them. He says baby monitors, cordless phones, and cell phone repeaters are three of the most common violators.