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FCC Fines Smart City $750K For Blocking Wi-Fi
schwit1 writes: FCC's Enforcement Bureau today announced a $750,000 settlement with Smart City Holdings, LLC for blocking consumers' Wi-Fi at various convention centers around the United States. Smart City, an Internet and telecommunications provider for conventions, meeting centers, and hotels, had been blocking personal mobile 'hotspots' that were being used by convention visitors and exhibitors who used their own data plans rather than paying Smart City substantial fees to use the company's Wi-Fi service.
If the fine isn't substantially more than the profit they made from blocking wifi, there is no incentive to stop the practice. The fine will be just another cost of doing business.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Seems the fine doesn't fit the crime.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If so, they still win.
You are posting: as Anonymous Coward
Then they would get hit with the fine again and again until they quit it. It is just like speeding. You get a ticket today for speeding, you are not covered, if you speed again you can get a ticket again right away.
And people are going to be watching this company very closely now.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
More like dumb city. Very dumb city.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
More to the point, if you keep getting fined for the same offenses, those fines are going to increase, and stronger measures may eventually be used to, if not assure compliance, then so damage the company that compliance ceases to be an issue.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
yes but the same analogy applies to if they make more than the fine, they will just add it as cost of doing business.
Smart City not so smart. And proving once again that acting like a dick is not a best practice.
RTFA:
"As part of the settlement, Smart City will cease its Wi-Fi blocking activities"
They signed a court order, if they keep doing it, it's contempt of court this time.
if $750K Smart City's corresponding profit?
(perhaps their actions were still worth the effort)
Great! Where's the form so I can tell the FCC where to mail my portion of the proceeds. .... Guys? ..... guys?
How much of that $750,000 fine goes to the people who had to pay $80/day for Internet service because they couldn't use their WiFi hotspot? I'm going to guess the answer is $0
We were ahhh...ensuring quality control by filtering out potentially disruptive signals, Yeah, that's the ticket!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The day I see a corporation behind bars is the day they'll start to listen. Now, if you were to "jail" them by requiring a halt of all stock trades, impound all assets, suspend all business operations, and revoke the corporate status and protection for all holdings and subsidiaries for the length of the jail term. That would get people's attention.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Every single person that attended their events should join a class action law suit.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Well the truth is you cannot easily use your phone for that, in fact using your phone for that is not allowed by the FAA. I am going to assume you knew that though.
Not a fine. A 'settlement'. Which could mean they agree to pay $750,000 without admitting guilt and promise never to do it again. So they effectively have a clean record for the purpose of bidding on contracts where this is a requirement.
Have gnu, will travel.
More to the point, if you keep getting fined for the same offenses, those fines are going to increase, and stronger measures may eventually be used to, if not assure compliance, then so damage the company that compliance ceases to be an issue.
So this company might stop doing it. But what about other companies doing this or other illegal things? It pretty much communicates that go you can go ahead and do whatever the heck you want until you get caught, because even after you've been busted the fine will be less than your profits. It's not like this is a new thing that they might not have known was illegal, they clearly just didn't give a shit because they knew if they got caught their illegal activity would still be profitable.
even after you've been busted the fine will be less than your profits.
Violating a consent decree means go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200, no trial. What business is worth that?
Um... You *do* realize that your cell phone cannot connect to the ground based network when you are airborne right? There are two reasons for this... #1 you are above the cell coverage because most cell antennas point at the ground. #2 You are moving way to fast, should you actually touch a cell site that can converse with your phone, by the time you go though the handshaking process and get service established your miles past the cell's edge.. Your Cell is pretty much useless.. Well, all that and there used to be safety reasons to make you turn off your phone...
Thanks a lot, I've started thinking this shit in the halls of my workplace. "Time for lunch, cows. Cows say moo. Moo cows MOOOOO! Moo say the cows. Lunchtime cows!"
The argument can be raised that it is their hotel, and their rules.
If I went to a pub and brought my own booze, I'd be tossed out. Same rule can be argued to apply with Wi-Fi.
Only if you had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Wireless transmissions take place on publicly owned airwaves. Jamming these airwaves is theft of publicly owned bandwidth.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
even after you've been busted the fine will be less than your profits.
Violating a consent decree means go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200, no trial. What business is worth that?
No one who is caught the first time with a violation like this is party to any consent decree. Only the party that 'consents' to it is.
The point of the poster above is that this sets a (very low) price for stealing public bandwidth until after you are caught the first time. A light fee for first time burglary convictions as the only punishment makes burglary very attractive until that first conviction. Not much of a deterrent to all the other burglar wannabes.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
makes burglary very attractive until that first conviction. Not much of a deterrent to all the other burglar wannabes.
this is a business model in whose universe?
Jamming is wilful obstruction of communications. It's criminal rather than civil.
Bruce Perens.
You knew your argument was absurd. That's why you posted AC.
One where I'm going to start a company and make billions of dollars then retire rich after paying $750M in fines and promising a judge that I'll never do it again.
No, the real problem is that you have line-of-sight communications to every cell site until the visible horizon. This tends to use up frequencies over a very large area. In general the antennas have been engineered not to work at high angles, but this can't be complete and the ones on the horizon may see you at the same angle as their regular users.
Bruce Perens.
One where I'm going to start a company and make billions of dollars then retire rich after paying $750M in fines and promising a judge that I'll never do it again.
but first you have to get your mother's permission
I clicked on the link but it doesn't say what Smart City did exactly, it just says they "blocked" it.
Was it by using an active jammer? Was it with lead paint or a Faraday cage? Or?
The way to get around this is to sell the blocking technology to your competition. Money is money, it's not about the blocking.
Aren't you supposed to be paying attention to the conference instead of playing Angry Birds or posting photos to facebook or leud comments to twitter?
I'm curious if anyone has witnessed this in action, do they block cell signals entirely? If they're jamming WiFi spectrum for example, you could still use your phone for data, or tether it to a PC or router/wired LAN. If they're blocking cell signals entirely, all it would take is one medical emergency where someone couldn't get a call out to 911, huge liability. I suppose they could also jam bands so that phones could only obtain a sluggish 2G data signal, then calls and texts would still work but data would be saturated and almost useless.
grep -iw skynet
The way to get around this is to sell the blocking technology to your competition. Money is money, it's not about the blocking.
just imagine the sales pitch: "warning: you may face heavy fines and criminal contempt charges", yes that is a great incentive
It's headquartered in Florida. Ain't Florida a hot bed for corrupt corporate activities? I would count Arizona as a hotbed for corrupt corporations as well.
RTFA
You mean something like this?
Marriot Hotels got hit the same way a year or so ago by blocking other wifi than theirs at their convention centers.. It was fun to hear them try to justify why they did it.. Things like "we were protecting our guests from rouge wifi access points, you should thanking us...".... Riiiiight.. Tell that to someone who believes you weren't just doing it to force people to use your grossly overpriced wifi...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Still are - there are documented instances where particular models of cellphones have interfered with navigational equipment - either causing the onboard heading indicators to indicate a few degrees off, to GPS units losing lock. With GPS being prominent in a lot of new approaches, especially RNP operations, this could be a problem.
Now, the vast majority of cellphones out there are fine - they don't interfere, but several models have proven problematic.
Don't worry too much about it though - they usually detect these issues and confirm it with the flight attendants asking everyone to turn off their electronic devices to see if their navigation equipment recovers. There are typically plenty of checks in the system - if the plane was off course, people generally know before your flight to LA ends up in Timbuktu.
The Enforcement Bureau’s
investigation revealed that Smart City automatically blocked consumers from using their own “rogue”
Wi-Fi networks at several convention centers the company serves, including the convention centers in
Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Orlando, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona.
In some places you even have to reimburse the government for your room and board while in jail; I wonder how many c-levels have that in their compensation packages?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Still are - there are documented instances where particular models of cellphones have interfered with navigational equipment - either causing the onboard heading indicators to indicate a few degrees off, to GPS units losing lock. With GPS being prominent in a lot of new approaches, especially RNP operations, this could be a problem.
Now, the vast majority of cellphones out there are fine - they don't interfere, but several models have proven problematic.
Don't worry too much about it though - they usually detect these issues and confirm it with the flight attendants asking everyone to turn off their electronic devices to see if their navigation equipment recovers. There are typically plenty of checks in the system - if the plane was off course, people generally know before your flight to LA ends up in Timbuktu.
Strange that they would interfere with modern commercial airline instrumentation with multiple redundant hardware, yet not cause any problems in small aircraft instrumentation, as pilots in small airplanes user cell phones all the time in the cockpit as opposed to 50 feet away.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
We made lots more than the stinkin' 750K. The FCC just wants their cut and to pretend that they are doing something for the chumps. Business will continue as usual.
What is the first law of unlicensed bandwidth; THOU SHALT NOT INTERFERE
Fucking assholes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They need to have criminal charges filed against them for Felony Network tampering, conspiracy, and hit with RICO laws.
The better scenario here would be if you EM insulated ( Faraday cage) your establishment. But then went on to offer your own wifi...
They don't jam the signals (in the sense of broadcasting noise). They turn the building into a big faraday cage. I stayed at one of these hotels and my phone's reception went from 4 bars outside to 0-1 bar inside. I tried standing next to a window and still was barely getting a signal. Later I found out they make conductive film you can put on the windows - optically transparent but makes for a seamless faraday cage.
I was just looking at a contract to be a vendor at a conference center in Indianapolis with internet managed by Smart City. $80 doesn't begin to describe their costs.
For a SINGLE computer on their network with shared bandwidth the base price is $895. Each additional device is $185.
If you want dedicated bandwidth it gets ridiculous. For 10Mbps they expect you to pay $9,810. I did not accidentally add a digit, that is nearly $10,000 for a single conference's internet access for a vendor.
Smart City is suppressing wifi not because of the random users, but because they have a strangle-hold on the vendors who want to show their wares, and everything is internet connected nowdays.
tora
Better to Nuke Smart City, Kill'm All, burn the bodies, pee on the ashes.
Ha ha
No, the small-aircraft owners aren't at risk of messing up their avionics. They are, however, consciously messing up the cellular network for everyone else. You see, you are supposed to be in range of just a few cells when you use your phone, so that we get frequency reuse between cells. If you are at altitude, you are in line-of-sight communications with all of the cells out to the visible horizon on all sides. And the frequencies you are using are probably locked out from reuse over that entire vast area. It would not take very many phones at altitude to disrupt the entire system.
Bruce Perens.
You are welcome. Moo.
I've been to cons in Columbus and Indy. And I've had my cell disrupted by these jackasses.
Glad they finally got what was coming to them.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They interfere with small aircraft avionics too, I've seen it (on an instrument approach, in the rain, at night). GSM is particularly obnoxious, it's pretty much guaranteed to wipe out all the audio and has a high chance of causing course deviation indicators to deflect.
We were intercepting the localiser one night and suddenly, all the audio was obliterated by "bip b b bip b b bip b b bip b b bip bRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" as my friend's wife called him. If ATC had given us an instruction at that moment we would not have heard it. It was also extremely distracting.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
true, but that doesn't release them from FCC liability either. And the chances of a settlement are near zero for a second offense. I've seen second FCC fines in another wireless industry, they are no joke.
Here is a specific example, from an industry publication, where the AT&T paid a fine of $600k and signed a consent decree ... when caught violating the consent decree the FCC let them off a second fine of $640k. http://rbr.com/att-slammed-by-fcc-over-microwave-stations/
When the second offense fine for repeatedly violating FCC regs after a signed consent decree is only 10% more than the first fine, that IS a joke and it does not fit the parameters of a "near zero [chance]" of settlement for a second WILLFUL offense.
It's only criminal if a jury agrees that a property owner does not own his property. I for one would have nullified this illegal law. If I want to block in my property, feel free to leave.
So, can the FAA now prosecute you for flying a 'drone' inside an airport hangar? If they thought they could get away with it, they probably would.
Being a radio/TV engineer, I don't like blocking, but since the services a commercial venture, I don't like the FCC regulating what happens inside a private, commercial building. Post a sign on the door and deal with it. If the business loses customers, they'll stop blocking. Most States that allow concealed carry allow businesses to forbid weapons in their building.
The $750,000 just buys the commissioner's lunch for a few weeks.
No... Cell towers are engineered for a range of just a few miles. 30,000-40,000 feet in the air would be outside the range of the cell towers no matter your angle to the antenna. The ones you are closest to (directly above) aren't engineered to communicate with things above them so have a much shorter range directly above. The ones nearer the horizon have a slant range that far exceeds the range of the transmitter in the tower and especially your phone.
So yes, the problem is that you can't connect to cell towers while at cruising altitude due to range and signal strength.
I would not tolerate any organization (including government) blocking my communications. B.A.R.T. saw an example of how people don't like that.
A lot of people would use electronic warfare to counter it. Either punch through their jammers, or to jam them in return. They are damn lucky people don't respond with military actions.
That said, I don't recognize any authority of the FCC. Any "fine" they would try to impose on me would be met with static.
http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/cellair-a.gif
Note the typical cell tower signal. It is far weaker toward that sky than toward the ground. Then look at this cell tower mast: http://www.antenna-theory.com/images/celltower.jpg
Notice the slight downward tilt to the "sector" antennas in the array.
While general aviation aircraft are more likely to get a signal due to their lower altitudes, distant cell towers simply won't be able to talk to cell phones that are more than a few hundred feet up, most of the time. While the antenna in your phone is omnidirectional, the main lobes of a cell tower are in very specific places aimed at the ground.
Signal strength drops off very quickly and disappears rapidly at any positive vertical offset from the antenna. This means the idea that this causes problems with the cell network pretty ridiculous.
They don't jam the signals (in the sense of broadcasting noise). They turn the building into a big faraday cage. I stayed at one of these hotels and my phone's reception went from 4 bars outside to 0-1 bar inside. I tried standing next to a window and still was barely getting a signal. Later I found out they make conductive film you can put on the windows - optically transparent but makes for a seamless faraday cage.
It is my understanding that that would be legal (though still sleezy). As long as the building materials do not emmit radio waves, the FCC has no authority. But, you're right, they are not broadcasting noise. They are spoofing packets from the 'rogue' wireless access points. These packets tell the clients that they are being kicked off and the clients disconnect. It is a highly efficient and effective form of jamming.
The hotels fined for doing this complain that they should be allowed to do it because they are using FCC approved equipment. But that is missing the point. That is like saying that you should not have gotten a traffic ticket for speeding because your car is roadworthy. It is not enough for the radio transmitter to be legal. You must also use it in a legal way. Programming the WIFI controller to send jamming packets using the FCC approved transmitter is illegal.
I just circle a tower if I need to make a call or receive a call while in flight.