Government to US convention centres: stop blocking Wi-Fi

AMERICAS – Convention centres could be forced to stop blocking Wi-Fi in the US, after a telecoms watchdog declare the move as “patently unlawful” and fined a leading internet providers US$750,000. Smart City Holdings was punished for blocking personal mobile hotspots used by convention visitors and exhibitors so they could avoid paying the company’s $80-per-day fee. This is the second time US law enforcers have taken action on the issue. Last year Marriott Hotel Services reached a $600,000 agreement with the FCC to settle allegations it interfered with and disabled Wi-Fi networks established by consumers in the hotel’s conference facilities in Nashville. In January, the FCC issued an enforcement advisory that stated unequivocally Wi-Fi blocking was prohibited. The action against Smart City Holdings followed a complaint from a company that allows people to establish hotspots as an alternative to paying Wi-Fi service fees charged by a venue. The company said customers couldn’t connect to its equipment at several venues where Smart City operated. Smart City later revealed it “automatically transmitted deauthentication frames to prevent Wi-Fi users whose devices produced a received signal strength above a present power level at Smart City access points from establishing or maintaining a Wi-Fi network independent of Smart City’s network”. Smart City Holdings president Mark Haley said his company in the past used equipment that prevented wireless devices from interfering with operations of exhibitors on convention floors. The activity resulted in less than one percent of all devices being deauthenticated. He said: “We have always acted in good faith, and we had no prior notice that the FCC considered the use of this standardized, ‘available-out-of-the-box’ technology to be a violation of its rules. But when we were contacted by the FCC in October 2014, we ceased using the technology in question.”