Feds spank naughty Hilton, M.C. Dean in Wi-Fi jamming crackdown The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined Hilton Hotels and M.C. Dean in two separate probes into Wi-Fi jamming. The watchdog said M.C. Dean, an IT services provider, must pay a $718,000 charge for knackering personal hotspots at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland. Hilton will have to pay $25,000 and …
The FCC fines these two for blocking local Wi-Fi connections but the FCC has done absolutely NOTHING to stop Comcast Cable from illegally globally blocking legitimate international e-mail sent to U.S. Comcast subscribers even though this illegal blockage is costing individuals and businesses in the U.S. millions annually. Comcast blatantly lies to customers and authorities while blocking ALL e-mail from many legitimate international ISP servers. That's right Comcast is blocking ALL e-mail from legitimate ISP servers, not just SPAM as they claim. The irrefutable proof of this illegal e-mail blockage has been reported to the FCC and FTC multiple times by numerous entities over the past two years and yet absolutely nothing has been done by the U.S. federal agencies charged with protecting consumers from this massive fraud and violation of law. What exactly does it take to get the Feds to do their job and protect the public from digital criminals?
What do you call 'legitimate ISP servers'? Do you mean like Network Solutions? I think you'll find that the zimbra that Comcast runs (if your server is the same as the one I saw yesterday) simply has all of the block lists enabled...and Network Solutions is in one.
I've seen white listed servers by Cisco and SpamCops that were being blocked by Comcast. Numerous entities have confirmed the illegal international e-mail blockage by Comcast. It appears that authorities are finally taking this criminal fraud seriously.
When will hotels, restaurants and other establishments realise that people want free wi-fi that is truly free - slurping my personal data means it is not free.....
Let's all campaign for the mass adoption for openwirless.org as an SSID and simply let people connect.
"When will hotels, restaurants and other establishments realise that people want free wi-fi that is truly free"
Yes, agreed, and when will they realise that people also want free food. Many restaurants still charge for food, even though it is essential to life. Hotels do it to, dinner especially, sometimes even breakfast!
One hotel I stayed in wanted money for using the phone, and when I looked in their spa they wanted me to actually pay for a treatment. FFS, I want things free!
Once we get all that free, maybe they can look at those charges they make for staying there in the first place. When I'm travelling I just want to be able to stop somewhere and sleep, I don't want to have to pay for it!
Ummmm; I think you might have misunderstood the story. The Hilton guests were using their own mobiles and associated data plans (for which they were presumably paying their cell company), and then connecting other wifi devices to the personal hotspot broadcast by the phone; a perfectly legitimate use of technology even in a hotel room. The accusation is that the Hilton chose to use its own building WiFi units, presumably in 'rogue-AP' blocking mode, to make this harder to do by swamping or otherwise interfering with the phone hotspot signal, thus forcing guests to use the hotel pay-for WiFi access, which is really rather naughty...
Hilton has almost 600 locations. As a result of this fine have they ceased this practice globally? In the USA? or at one hotel? A hotel with 200 rooms, that are full 300 days per year at $200 per room = $12,000,000 annually.
For one hotel, that $750,000 is quite a whack - and if they are corrected and compliant globally a good result. Over the empire that fine is trivial, a fee to do what they like.
What is needed is for convention organizers to get WiFi pooled into the room rate for zero extra, with no blocking of hotspots etc.
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