The FCC has fined a networking company for blocking independent WiFi access in convention halls, the second major action against companies using deauthentication technology in two years. Blocking any legal radio communications is illegal.
If you take your laptop or tablet to tradeshows and conferences, you know it can be a headache connecting to the hall’s WiFi service. There usually is a long line of frustrated users waiting at the help desk. To add insult to injury, some conference network providers have been blocking access to personal hot spots used by consumers to set up their own WiFi access.
The FCC this week announced it has fined Smart City Networks $750,000 for blocking access to personal hot spots in convention halls where it provides service, the second such action in two years. In 2014 the commission fined Marriott International $600,000 for blocking personal WiFi in its hotels. Both cases were settled by consent decree, without trial or admission of illegal activity.
The actions are a reminder that the airwaves are public and that blocking signals, even inside buildings, is illegal.
The Communications Act makes it illegal to interfere with any legal radio communications, except in response to specific threats to a network. There are some downsides to this prohibition. Theaters can’t block cellular access to keep jerks from using their phones during movies and other performances. Even jails and prisons can’t block cellular traffic to keep prisoners from illegally communicating with the outside. Police can’t jam signals to prevent the possibility of remote detonation of suspected bombs. But on the whole, it is a good law. It brings order to the airwaves and ensures that if you have a license or are using a licensed device you will not be interfered with by others with their own agendas.
But in a warning issued in January, the FCC said it has seen “a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal WiFi hot spots.”
Personal hot spots can be standalone pocket-sized transmitters that link WiFi enabled devices to cellular devices. Many smart phones have this capability built in, allowing them to act as routers for WiFi devices and connect them to the cellular network.
One of the ways to block these devices is “deauthentication.” WiFi protocols require that clients authenticate themselves to access points, and also let either one deauthenticate and break off the session. A spoofed deauthentication request injected into the process will block further communication. Commercial products are available to do this.
Smart City Networks said it was doing this for network management, not to force users onto its WiFi service.
“We are not gatekeepers to the Internet,” the company said in a statement. “We have occasionally used technologies made available by major equipment manufacturers to prevent wireless devices from significantly interfering with and disrupting the operations of neighboring exhibitors on our convention floors.”
The company said the technology is widely used in convention centers, but that it stopped using it in October when contacted by the FCC.
The hospitality industry defends blocking personal WiFi as a legitimate tool to protect their guests and other paying WiFi customers, whose performance can be degraded by interference from personal hotspots. It also says personal hotspot access is less secure and likely to be more expensive (because it uses the customer’s cellular data plan) than using a facility’s service.
But the FCC, which oversees use of the public airwaves and enforces the Communications Act, called WiFi “an essential on-ramp to the Internet” and is not ready to let third parties make the choice for consumers on how they use the service.