Hotels Seek To Block WiFi Hotspots

Via the Wall Street Journal:

An industry group that includes Marriott International Inc. has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for guidance on whether hotels are acting within the law when they disable unauthorized WiFi access points set up on their properties. The hotels say they are trying to make sure their own wireless networks don’t get bogged down and to prevent criminals from tricking people into logging onto fake WiFi networks. The issue is a flash point for some consumers who believe hotels are trying to force people to use hotel Internet WiFi service—often for a price. And it has broader implications for how convention halls, companies and hospitals manage what has become a must-have communications service. The hotel group says the law against willful interference of communications signals shouldn’t apply to WiFi, because it doesn’t use licensed spectrum.

Yesterday the New York Times editorialized against the petition, calling the claim that WiFi frequencies aren't licensed in the first place an "absurd argument." Last summer Marriott was fined $600K for blocking signals at its hotel and convention complex in Nashville.