Slashdot Mirror
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 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?
I dunno what prices you've been conned into paying, but that parses as gouging to me.
Consultants aren't necessary; Hofstra already has an IT infrastructure and staff in place. At worst, they'd have to deploy a couple dozen more WAPs and maybe a 24-port switch if you don't already have the ports free -- maybe USD$4000.00 worth of HW. Set up a new SSID for the reporters with a WPA2 login, which lands you on a temporary VLAN and subnet that routes directly to the Internet and nowhere else. Takes maybe a day to set up, and most of that is CS interns/undergrads pulling Cat.6 and placing WAPs/antennas.
After the debate, turn off the SSID, VLAN, and subnet -- you can pull out the WAPs (if you must) at your leisure. Put the HW away; save it for the next big event, or when an endowment arrives for the next building.
How does this justify $200/head? (Seriously; what am I not figuring here?)
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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 :)
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.