Why is signal jamming not a common strategy against droid armies?

Question

The premise is that one can jam the entire spectrum of wireless communication channels, rendering most wireless communication devices useless. By doing this, the battle droids will loose their control signal and be rendered inoperable. This tactic was first shown in Outbound Flight; the droids in both Outbound Flight and The Phantom Menace we rendered inoperable once the control ship was jammed/destroyed.

The one downside to this strategy is both sides cannot use wireless communiction devices. Thrawn mentioned that Chiss have trained to coordinate using non-wireless communications. The droid control ship also attempts to use laser line-of-sight communications to connect to the droids; it is implied that this method is slow and can only reach a limited number of droids.

Since a majority of Trade Federation Forces are Battle Droids, it seems that this strategy would render the Trade Federation mostly defenseless. While one would loose their communication abilities, it seems like they would have an easier time fighting the disabled droids and the less than capable Trade Federation non-droid forces.

Whether or not this strategy could work seems to be irrelevant as Thrawn successfully uses it during Outbound Flight (Legends).

There are a few caveats to this theory:

a.) The premise of this was based on a strategy used by Thrawn in the non-canon book Outbound Flight. It is very possible that this strategy is no longer applicable.

b.) This also assumes that the Trade Federation were using Battle Droids that were similar to those used during the Naboo Crisis, ones that utilized a central control unit.

C.) This Strategy could not be used during the Clone Wars

Why is full-spectrum jamming not used by those fighting against the Trade Federation?

Answer 1

From the OP:

The premise is that one can jam the entire spectrum of wireless communication channels, rendering most wireless communication devices useless.

The Trade Federation would not use radio or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum when they can use hyperspace communications.

Consider the benefits of using hyperspace communications over radio signals.

1. From what we have seen in the movies, hyperspace communications appears to be a point-to-point communication between any two devices in the galaxy. Since it is point to point, the Trade Federation can communicate directly with each droid. (This might be why I have never seen any mention of a galaxy-wide internet equivalent in Star Wars. Why set up internet relays, routers, and backbone signal carriers and all the other infrastructure of an internet when you can have point-to-point communication between any two devices?) This might also be why hyperspace signals are useful for homing beacons attached to ships like the Millennium Falcon.
2. It is instantaneous. No lag time involved in the much slower go-only-as-fast-as-photons radio signals.
3. Hyperspace signals can go through planets, unlike radio signals.

Maybe jamming hyperspace signals is just not an option.

There is the example of Luke telling Leia to jam the signals from the stormtroopers on the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. The whole ability to jam signals isn't mentioned much besides this one example in the entire canon Star Wars saga. (If anybody can find other examples of jamming in canon sources, please post them in the comments. Thanks.) My out-of-universe explanation for the speeder bike scene is that the script writers didn't think through the implications of point-to-point hyperspace communications.

Answer 2

They couldn't before, and it no longer worked after

Per your second caveat, the battle droids were indeed made more autonomous following the Battle for Naboo, and no longer required the droid control ship. As far as jamming, we do have examples in canon, so we know it should have been possible. As to why it wasn't used during the battle, there are a couple of reasons:

1. The battle was fought simultaneously from above and below. Supposing they had the technology to perform the jam, it would have likely been under control of the droid army, which means they had to take back the city in order to access it.

2. They probably just don't have the technology, or at least not readily available at the strength needed. Naboo was a peaceful world, shown by how little of a standing army they had and how easy they were to take over. There's no reason to believe they had the technology locally and readily available to jam the signal from the droid control ship.