Conference Attendees Get Relief as FCC Fines Wi-Fi Provider for Blocking Personal Hotspots
Skift Take
This is another step on the road toward Wi-Fi access becoming a free and open utility, and a right. Until the laws catch up with the times it appears we can expect more battles like this for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission scored another victory this week in its crusade to quash Wi-Fi blocking wherever it can when it handed out a $750,000 fine to Smart City Holdings, one of the nation's largest convention Wi-Fi providers.
Smart City, which provides Internet and telecommunication services at 35 U.S. convention and meetings centers and is also in hotels, had been blocking personal mobile “hotspots” that were being used by convention visitors and exhibitors who used their own data plans rather than paying Smart City substantial fees to use the company’s Wi-Fi service.
In June 2014 the FCC launched an investigation after it rece
