Marriott Fined $600,000 For Jamming Guest Hotspots

schwit1 writes: Marriott will cough up $600,000 in penalties after being caught blocking mobile hotspots so that guests would have to pay for its own Wi-Fi services, the FCC has confirmed today. The fine comes after staff at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee were found to be jamming individual hotspots and then charging people up to $1,000 per device to get online. Marriott has been operating the center since 2012, and is believed to have been running its interruption scheme since then. The first complaint to the FCC, however, wasn't until March 2013, when one guest warned the Commission that they suspected their hardware had been jammed.

Comments

Inverse Wi-fi law

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that the most awful dumpy motels always seem to have free, open and strong wi-fi? Many don't even bother with passwords.

Yet it's the expensive name-brand boutique hotels that always charge for wi-fi. And more often not, it's terrible quality, hard to connect and slow?
And, now we see this happening. This never happens at Motel 6.

Has anyone else noticed this- that overall the cheaper and sleazier the motel, the better the wi-fi?

Re:Not surprised in the least

[i.r.id10t]

I just stayed at a fancy hotel in Boston, they wanted $20/day internet access (wired or wireless).

First night I was actually able to connect to the public library a few blocks down the road, but it was VERY slow (3k/sec). After that first night, I was never able to reconnect....

Then I found out the hotel has internet connected TVs, so I plugged my *nix laptop into one of their jacks, got DHCP, and did a (ze)nmap scan to find all the other TVs. Picked one at random, grabbed its MAC address, and spoofed it on my network card. Wallah! Free access.

Charging for 'net access in a $50/night room I can understand - even if it is $10 or so. A $500/night room though should come with free wireless.... strangely in my travels, many cheap places (ie the $50-80/ngiht places I pay for) give free wireless, free coffee, sometimes some sort of free breakfast service, etc and the expensive fancy hotels (that my filthy rich relatives use and pay for, which is why I ended up in one in Boston) not only don't have these as free, but the prices they charge are outrageous ($24 for 2 eggs over medium, hashbrowns, bacon, toast vs. the same meal at Dennys, Waffle House, Perkins, any local diner, etc. for under $10).