Few months back, Hotel Marriott faced a complaint that it was blocking personal Wi-Fi hotspots for its guests so that they will buy Wi-Fi packages from them. Later, they settled with FCC about this practice for $600,000. Now hotel industry is trying to convince US government to give them the permission for blocking guests from using personal Wi-Fi hotspots. Technology companies such as Microsoft, Google and others are opposing their plans.
The wireless industry’s trade group, CTIA, noted that wireless phones or other gadgets that use Wi-Fi have “equal rights to use unlicensed spectrum; no single entity may intentionally prevent others from using that spectrum.”
“The public is best served by increasing the potential for these networks, not allowing an individual Wi-Fi network manager unilaterally to shut them down,” CTIA told the FCC.