I never pay for wifi in an hotel. If free wifi is not part of the deal, then I will stay somewhere else.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
FCC Warns Hotels About Intentionally Blocking Wi-Fi Hotspots
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's amazing to see that there is a government office that appears to be using some common sense. Good for the FCC!
Unfortunately, there was probably a 2 year investigation costing taxpayers millions of dollars to come to this logical conclusion.
I'm very happy with the result, but hard not to be cynical about the US Governments ability to make fast or low cost decisions.
Unfortunately, there was probably a 2 year investigation costing taxpayers millions of dollars to come to this logical conclusion.
I'm very happy with the result, but hard not to be cynical about the US Governments ability to make fast or low cost decisions.
Your precious "free market" is a myth. Hence, why the government steps in to save the day, as usual.
A free market needs some level of governmental support to resolve disputes, protect rights, and enforce contracts but your mythical paradise where the government runs everything from on high doesn't exist.
----------
The lower the hotel room rate, the more likely that wi-fi is included.
I travel a lot for business and at every "business class" hotel I stay at, which is 85% Hilton and 15% Marriott, I always, always, always leave feedback that their WiFi sucks.
I get free WiFi at both due to status but it's always slower than my 4G on my iPhone. So that's what I use for the most part. Throw in a VPN (which I'm usually on) and it's even worse.
Every once in a while I'll get a manager that responds and says they'll look into it, but I've probably left feedback 30x in the last two years and it still sucks.
I get free WiFi at both due to status but it's always slower than my 4G on my iPhone. So that's what I use for the most part. Throw in a VPN (which I'm usually on) and it's even worse.
Every once in a while I'll get a manager that responds and says they'll look into it, but I've probably left feedback 30x in the last two years and it still sucks.
Tell me when all Marriots have blazingly fast WiFi that's cheap. Until then, don't block my effing hotspot, which is faster and more secure.
What the hotels were doing was preventing the consumer from exercising free market choice by intentionally blocking the consumer's ability to use a competing service.
I guess 'free market' means different things to different people. I'm glad to see the FCC steeping in to protect citizens from corporate over control.
Just as important is the FCC protecting 'net neutrality' from getting sold out to corporate interests.
It is usually so substandard though. 1-2Mb/s just isn't enough to work. Maybe email, but no VPN or file transfer from office, etc. Even remote desktop at slow speeds can be painful.
On the other hand, the high room rate hotels like to charge a "resort fee", which includes the use of their crappy WIFI. I do understand that it's hard to bring in 500mbps of service so every guest can have their 5-10mbps, that just isn't affordable.
Personally, I don't feel its a RIGHT to have streaming ability on FREE WIFI. I do, though, feel if I can get a nice 50mbps connection to Verizon LTE on my iPad, I should have the right to hot-spot into it and stream away on my dime.
Net neutrality means different things to different people. T-Mobile won't be able to offer limited data plans with unlimited music streaming under some extreme forms of "net neutrality."
The problem with government interference is that soon the big players learn how to use the government to keep others out. I.e. government gets into the business of picking winners and losers.
DSL lines in this country are already subject to "net neutrality" of sorts in that the government requires the phone companies to give away access to the "last mile" at fixed prices to other companies. It was intended to foster competition, but all it did was discourage investment in DSL copper lines and into technology that wasn't subject to the same regulation (e.g. fiber optics), which, since they were starting from scratch, took longer to gain traction. Why bother investing in DSL when there was no benefit? Even in South Korea, most people get their high-speed broadband over DSL lines. So part of the reason we have such slow broadband speeds here relative to other advanced countries is that government interference gave no one an incentive to invest in the infrastructure we already had.
The bottom line is that while it looks like the FCC made the right move here, we need to be careful about the use of government power, as well.
A "free" market that needs some level of government support, as you put it, is therefore not free to begin with. By that logic, the atypical idea of a libertarian free market cannot exist if government intervention is needed. So the free market is indeed a myth.
In reality, something libertarians don't want to acknowledge, governments allow for commerce to take place. However, monied interests have corrupted government to the point that the playing field is tilted to only benefit only the largest corporations. And in reality, if only a handful of the largest corporations dominate certain markets, a real free market cannot exit as there are no other players.
----------
Libertarianism varies from person to person. Libertarians can't even agree on who's a real Libertarian except for the fact that they all cling onto the word "freedom" but the meaning behind it changes from person to person.
I never claimed to be a libertarian, but what you are describing is complete anarchy, not a free market. All a "free market" means is that the government exists to enforce contracts and act as an arbiter of dispute. There has never been a pure capitalist system, but since it's a matter of degrees we can point to eras in which we have had freer vs. less free markets. The pendulum has been swinging to "less free" over the past few years. Generally what people are referring to is the level of central planning by a government or regulatory body vs. less direct involvement and letting competing private interests pursue their individual goals.
True monopolies rarely exist without the implicit or explicit support of the government. "Pure competition" is mostly an economic fantasy that exists only in tulip markets in Amsterdam and the minds of economists smoking a somewhat different agricultural product sold in Amsterdam. But varying degrees of competition generally keep markets functioning without the need for governments setting prices, production quotas, etc.
In the case of radio spectrum, since it is a valuable resource, the FCC was establishes essentially to foster private ownership and development by allocating frequencies to avoid overlap. Most spectrum is licensed, but the FCC set aside several "unregulated" bands to enable wi-fi and similar short-distance communication technologies. Marriott overstepped the rules, but this was news primarily because it is uncommon.
Isn't it amazing that the higher the room charge of the hotel, the fewer extras that are included for free?
If you were running a power plant or factory, or secure location, killing any attempted rogue networks on your physical property is a feature. The beauty of this is that you don't have to know if you got rogues or you drones or key loggers or dropped honeypots, this feature just breaks the wifi of everybody "not allowed" until they come ask permission.
Years and years ago I had a pocket PC phone with Verizon. When I didn't pay my phone bill on time and they shut off my service, it would disable the wifi on my phone. Yes I should have paid my bills on time but the wifi is a phone feature built in to the phone. How are they to tell me I can't use a free feature on my phone without their service? The whole T-Mobile thing reminded me of that situation and I agree that carriers have no right to tell you what you can do with the data you pay for as long as it's legal lol. Tether if you want without worries.
I'll bet you are all about the "free market" when it comes to immigrants trying to get into into your country to work.
I'm with you, but cut the market some slack. It's busy enough as it is trying to take care of murder, burglary and securities fraud...
The free market died about 150 years ago. Whenever a market grows beyond a point, any number of competitors band together and artificially drive up prices. When new players come into the game, those established companies will use their market position to prevent suppliers from servicing those new companies. They will also, for a short time, sell their services way below cost until the competition dies. Then they will double their prices to make up the shortfall.
The problem is not government interference, it is corporate ownership of government keeping the government from doing it's job by breaking up these monopolies and cartels and from sending those responsible to prison for a very long time.