wifi blocking [was Re: Marriott wifi blocking]

Wed Oct 8 22:25:33 UTC 2014

On 10/8/2014 16:11, William Herrin wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 4:37 PM, joel jaeggli <joelja at bogus.com> wrote:
>> On 10/8/14 1:29 PM, Larry Sheldon wrote:
>>> On 10/8/2014 08:47, William Herrin wrote:
>>>> BART would not have had an FCC license. They'd have had contracts with
>>>> the various phone companies to co-locate equipment and provide wired
>>>> backhaul out of the tunnels. The only thing they'd be guilty of is
>>>> breach of contract, and that only if the cell phone companies decided
>>>> their behavior was inconsistent with the SLA..
>>>
>>> OK that makes more sense than the private answer I got from Roy.  I
>>> wondered why the FCC didn't take action if there was a license violation.
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/technology/fcc-reviews-need-for-rules-to-interrupt-wireless-service.html?_r=0
>
>>From the article: "Among the issues on which the F.C.C. is seeking
> comment is whether it even has authority over the issue."
>
> Also: "The BART system owns the wireless transmitters and receivers
> that allow for cellphone reception within its network."
>
> I'm not entirely clear how that works.

Several things fail the "entirely clear" test.

(I'm not entirely clear on where the interruption was, but the pictures 
made me think "San Francisco".   And I'm too lazy to look it up.)  In 
San Francisco, the Muni is in a pipe above (if I remember correctly) 
BART--did they interrupt cell service there as well?  I wonder if there 
is any leakage.

As I recall, BART does not permit anything on their trains--water, baby 
bottles, and I thought radios.  How do they get the authority to do that?

-- 
The unique Characteristics of System Administrators:

The fact that they are infallible; and,

The fact that they learn from their mistakes.

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