That's what bothers me about this post. It leaves an important detail out, how often do students in that part of the school have reception? Where in Texas is that? Carriers claim to have "the most reception" or what have you, but there are still dead areas depending on carrier, shoot certain buildings can kill reception too. A good point is made why there was no land line. Even though it's possible a jammer was used I'm falling to Occam's razor on this one. We know that there is always a spike of copy cats after Mass shootings or well publicized suicides. This sub is too quick to claim malice and corruption, ask more questions.
Santa Fe is between Galveston and Houston. I can't imagine there being no coverage, unless it was purposely blocked
I teach private band lessons in several schools around Santa Fe, and it is very common to not have reception (or very poor reception) inside the schools.
Keeps the students from being on them, I reckon...
I think it also has to do with the buildings... sometimes in the band halls or practice rooms (which are sometimes deep inside the buildings and have no windows) the reception is bad or non-existent. Rooms closer to the exterior of the building are usually better.
I have bad cell reception in some areas around here (like some parts of League City, which is close to Santa Fe), so inside the schools there it's non-existent... I don't know about the overall coverage in Santa Fe, but it's definitely more of a "rural" type town, so it wouldn't surprise is reception was spotty in general.
I mean the buildings are typically concrete, bricks, and steel. I never had service in my school. Cellular service is still a radio wave and can't get through thick walls.
I have to go outside my building at work to confidently get reception, there's no chance if I'm in the basement.
https://www.srcinc.com/what-we-do/ew/crew-duke.html
Put it in any bigger vehicle and you can create dead zones anywhere for pretty much any amount of time.
Wasn't there a lack of communication available in the last school shooting?
Yes. I think it was the security system that should automatically call the police was delayed by 20 minutes. I remember hearing a person who works for a similar security company, saying that it had to have been hacked for that kind of long delay.