Marriott fined by the FCC for blocking customer Wi-Fi

The FCC wants the Marriott hotel chain to pay up for its slimy practice of blocking and disabling conference guests’ personal Wi-Fi connections. Marriott is accused of jamming personal connections at its Gaylord Opryland location in Nashville, Tennessee. In a statement, the FCC said its team had evidence that Marriott employees blocked personal access “while at the same time charging consumers, small businesses, and exhibitors as much as $1000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network.”

Marriott International Inc.was fined $600,000 by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for blocking hotel customers from connecting to the Internet on personal Wi-Fi networks in order to force them to pay for the hotel’s networks. Marriott employees blocked mobile “hotspots” at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, while at the same time charging consumers, small businesses and exhibitors as much as $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network, the FCC said in a statement today. “Consumers who purchase cellular data plans should be able to use them without fear that their personal Internet connection will be blocked by their hotel or conference center,” FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in the statement.