Marriott wifi blocking

Brett Frankenberger rbf+nanog at panix.com
Sun Oct 5 23:13:13 UTC 2014


On Sat, Oct 04, 2014 at 11:19:57PM -0700, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 
> > There's a lot of amateur lawyering ogain on in this thread, in an area
> > where there's a lot of ambiguity.  We don't even know for sure that
> > what Marriott did is illegal -- all we know is that the FCC asserted it
> > was and Mariott decided to settle rather than litigate the matter.  And
> > that was an extreme case -- Marriott was making transmissions for the
> > *sole purpose of preventing others from using the spectrum*.
> 
> I don't see a lot of ambiguity in a plain text reading of part 15.
> Could you please read part 15 and tell me what you think is
> ambiguous?

Marriott was actually accused of violating 47 USC 333:
   No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause
   interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or
   authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States
   Government.

In cases like the Marriott case, where the sole purpose of the
transmission is to interfere with other usage of the transmission,
there's not much ambiguity.  But other cases aren't clear from the
text.  

For example, you've asserted that if I've been using "ABCD" as my SSID
for two years, and then I move, and my new neighbor is already using
that, that I have to change.  But that if, instead of duplicating my
new neighbor's pre-existing SSID, I operate with a different SSID but
on the same channel, I don't have to change.  I'm not saying your
position is wrong, but it's certainly not clear from the text above
that that's where the line is.  That's what I meant by ambiguity.

(What's your position on a case where someone puts up, say, a
continuous carrier point-to-point system on the same channel as an
existing WiFi system that is now rendered useless by the p-to-p system
that won't share the spectrum?  Illegal or Legal?  And do you think the
text above is unambiguous on that point?)

     -- Brett



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