The Federal Communications Commission fined $600,000 to Marriott International on Friday for unlawfully blocking customers WI-Fi access in a conference room at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, which is controlled by the company.
FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in a statement that Marriott workers were using "Wi-Fi blocking technology." The blocking technology called jammers prevent people at the hotel from using the Internet via their own Wi-fi networks on their smartphones and other gadgets with Wi-fi. At the same time, the hotel charges $250 to $1,000 per device to connect to their wireless network in its conference facility.
Hotel guests, usually business travelers, carry Wi-fi hotspots to connect to their own networks. The jamming technology used by the hotel prohibits the guests to connect to the cellphone towers.
"It is unacceptable for any hotel to intentionally disable personal hotspots while also charging customers and small businesses high fees to use the hotel's own Wi-Fi network," said LeBlanc. "This practice puts customers in the untenable position of either paying twice for the same service or forgoing Internet access altogether."
According to the Huffington Post, Wi-Fi jammers as defined by FCC are "illegal radio frequency transmitters that are designed to block, jam, or otherwise interfere with authorized radio communications."
Marriott spokesperson said in a statement to The Huffington Post, "Like many other institutions and companies in a wide variety of industries, including hospitals and universities, the Gaylord Opryland protected its Wi-Fi network by using FCC-authorized equipment provided by well-known, reputable manufacturers."
Despite the FCC warning to Marriott to stop blocking Wi-Fi, the hotel still believes that what they are doing can't be consider as illegal. They said in the statement that they'll continue to encourage FCC to eliminate the confusion of the issue and to further asses the underlying meaning of the law.
