Slashdot Mirror
FCC Fines Another Large Firm For Blocking WiFi
AmiMoJo writes: Another company is learning about the fine points of Section 333 of the Communications Act, which prohibits willful interference with any licensed or authorized radio communications. This time, M.C. Dean, who provided the Baltimore Convention Center's in-house WiFi service, were caught by the FCC sending deauthentication frames to prevent hotspot users maintaining a connection. The complainant alleged that M.C. Dean's actions were identical to those that had earned Marriott a $600,000 fine only weeks earlier.
The fine was fined - by the Department of Redundancy Department.
FCC Fines Ralph Fiennes, Larry Fine, and Richard Feynman a Mighty Fine Fine for Blocking WiFine
It looks fine to me.
They blocked wifi from 2012 to 2014, and the estimated sales of this company were over $700 million in 2013. M.C. Dean charged $795 to $1,095 for access to the Wi-Fi it provided depending on whether the services were ordered in advance or on-site..
From the timing implied, it sounds like the Baltimore Convention Center heard of Marriott's case, looked at the relatively minimal fine involved for how widespread the practice was, and thought, "huh, not a bad idea, really. We could do that." Hopefully, the FCC's fine has enough of a sting to it to make it seem less worthwhile to anyone else considering the practice.
We will never be the change to the weather and the sea
I appreciate Slashdot has standards, and one is "If you didn't preview, nuh nuh, even though we make it easy to submit without previewing and don't do what every other website does", but, really, the editors should change the headline.
OK, when did we get standards?
And how come there has not been a single moo on this page yet?
Did I wake up in an alternate universe?
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Whistleblowers shouldn't necessarily be fired, assuming they notified their employers first who didn't didn't act upon the information. In fact in some instances they should probably be rewarded for pointing out things that may put employees or the public in harm's way. My cousin once pointed out during a food-processing factory visit that non-nut products were crossing the way of nut products but that the allergen information didn't reflect that. She didn't get fired, she got a bonus for it.
It seems like much of the problem originates from the limited spectrum available to wifi, which makes it hard/expensive to cover large, dense spaces, especially if people are bringing in their own network devices.
This leads to "rogue ap suppression" which I'd wager is motivated as much by network operators tired of getting screamed at because "the conference room wifi sucks" and thinking that suppressing hotspots will improve it as much as it is by greedy operators who believe that crushing hotspots will improve profits.
Everything is click-bait. This is the Internet. You didn't know that?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.