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FCC Official Asks Agency To Investigate Ban On Journalists' Wi-Fi Personal Hotspots At Debate (arstechnica.com)
Yesterday, it was reported that journalists attending the presidential debate at Hofstra University were banned from using personal hotspots and were told they had to pay $200 to access the event's Wi-Fi. The journalists were reportedly offered the option to either turn off their personal hotspots or leave the debate. Cyrus Farivar via Ars Technica is now reporting that "one of the members of the Federal Communications Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel, has asked the agency to investigate the Monday evening ban." Ars Technica reports: Earlier, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted, saying that something was "not right" with what Hofstra did. She cited an August 2015 order from the FCC, forcing a company called SmartCity to no longer engage in Wi-Fi blocking and to pay $750,000. Ars has since updated their report with a statement from Karla Schuster, a spokeswoman for Hofstra University: The Commission on Presidential Debates sets the criteria for services and requires that a completely separate network from the University's network be built to support the media and journalists. This is necessary due to the volume of Wi-Fi activity and the need to avoid interference. The Rate Card fee of $200 for Wi-Fi access is to help defray the costs and the charge for the service does not cover the cost of the buildout. For Wi-Fi to perform optimally the system must be tuned with each access point and antenna. When other Wi-Fi access points are placed within the environment the result is poorer service for all. To avoid unauthorized access points that could interfere, anyone who has a device that emits RF frequency must register the device. Whenever a RF-emitting device was located, the technician notified the individual to visit the RF desk located in the Hall. The CPD RF engineer would determine if the device could broadcast without interference.
The law bans active jamming of Wifi signals. That is not what Hofstra did. They just made a policy announcement. That is not the same thing at all.
Should it be illegal for movie theaters to have cellphone bans? How is this different?
you underestimate the free or low cost tenant agreements mobile providers are given by the universities. on my little podunk state-funded school, we had 8 base stations per building to ensure sufficient coverage. they would provide additional mobile base stations for larger activities such as graduation. you know the one commonality all these devices shared? a fiber connection back to a switch in a room they controlled and an rj45 that came out which we gladly provided free bandwidth on our (then) internet2 backhaul. 2 hops and they were directly on the federal and education funded backbone (of the time).
this was over 10 years ago. i'm pretty sure they (the mobile carriers) can handle the large^H^H^H^H^H relatively small gathering of people using data.
-dk
You don't think a system at a university university with over 10k students streaming video over youtube, Facebook, netflix, etc, could handle a bunch of tweeting reporters?
There is not a limitless amount of bandwidth to broadcast in a small area. Most of these devices are operating in the same spectrum (since they are WiFi, UHF and SHF). The FCC almost certainly has the exclusive legal right to regulate the radio spectrum, but the organizer of an event should be given some way to coordinate and organize access to the limited resource. That the FCC lacks any way for an event to legally do something that I believe they should be doing. I argue that the FCC needs a form and a fee for this sort of thing before organizers are allowed to restrict WiFi access. And that requests are temporary and limited to santioned events and not for a coffee shop or theme park that wants to gouge customers.
Of course I'm ignoring the issue of free speech. Does your right to free speech include running your own WiFi network to circumvent a potentially malicious organization's WiFi?
$200 per head seems about right on price, if I had to hire some consultants to throw together a network for 3 days, then tear it all down, seems like a bargain.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think central new agencies are a product of the left. Don't expect one with a Trump presidency.
Damn reporters tarting up their access points with makeup, shouldn't be allowed.
THIS!
You cannot emit RF to jam signals on your property, but finding an RF emitter and ejecting it (along with the owner) from the premises is permitted. You get bonus points for spelling out these terms in a signed contract too...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Unfortunately, putting any kind of restriction on a part-15 device is exactly "sub-licensing", which you're not allowed to do.
That it was private property is... going to be an interesting argument :)
Hofstra has been used for this purpose before, and for much bigger conferences than the measly 1000 people in the hall last night.
They charged $200/head for their wi-fi hotspot. $200,000 can pay for a lot of bandwidth for a 90 minute event.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This. The FCC is important, RF regulation is important as spectrum is a shared resource and is not contained by walls, geographic boundaries, etc. Someone needs to be in charge of preventing interference and encouraging research of effective use of a limited resource.
Side rant, I think it was a poor choice to raise a bunch of money by starting the sell spectrum to cell providers in the 90s instead of licensing it to them as had been done before and is still done for most frequencies. The FCC has effectively ceded regulatory control of huge chunks of spectrum so now a lot of power is concentrated into a few companies that own spectrum and it's not necessarily in their interest to pursue certain RF research or new RF technology and we have no societal via governmental way to force transitions to new technology. Imagine if TV stations owned their spectrum, we might never have been able to force a HD digital transition.
No, it is about mutual benefit. Even if n journalists are competing for the limited cell signal, they will saturate 2.5 and 5ghz with hotspots, eliminating wifi as a useful tool.
Using your phone as a camera or whatever would be fine... fight for cell signal. Everyone else benefits with more reliable wifi...
How is this different?
Only the FCC can regulate the airwaves, much like only the FAA can regulate the navigable skies.
Now, this idea of it being physical trespassing if somebody doesn't comply is interesting, but this has come up before, such as what happened here.
Bandwidth auctions are only selling off a LEASE of that spectrum in the first place.
Auctioning is a good way to allocate limited resources. The significant expense highly discourages carriers from buying anything they won't extensively use (leaving it open for smaller organizations) and have also encouraged the FCC to open up more spectrum to get in on some more of that big cash.
It's money from the cellular carriers that has been paying for developments of 3G and 4G technologies, and is continuing with a surprisingly fast push to work on 5G.
And again, the huge expense of buying new spectrum in an auction is encouraging cellular carriers to "densify" their networks, instead of just expanding their bandwidth.
There's been no need for the government to force carriers to start shutting off their 2G networks and rolling out 4G. There's competition in the market, and tighter integration between sender and receiver. TV networks could never have hoped to force their audience to upgrade their all their TVs, but cell carriers can and regularly do.
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