Media Mention

Law360 Reports On Filing In Legal Challenge to FCC’s Wi-Fi Blocking Enforcement Action

Law360
December 4, 2015

Bennett Ross, chair of Wiley Rein’s Telephony & Information Technology practice, and Mark B. Sweet, co-chair of Communications Enforcement & Compliance practice, authored a filing with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) that was quoted extensively in a Law360 article, which challenges a proposed $718,000 fine against M.C. Dean Inc. for allegedly blocking personal mobile Wi-Fi hot spots at the Baltimore Convention Center (BCC).

“These theories are akin to a second-rate B-movie Dracula that collapses when exposed to the realities of daylight,” Mr. Ross and Mr. Sweet wrote in the filing. “The [notice of apparent liability (NAL)] should be dispatched with the regulatory equivalent of a wooden stake through the heart: a summary cancelation or withdrawal of the NAL.”

The filing contends ed that M.C. Dean used deauthentication to provide secure and reliable Wi-Fi service and did not violate applicable law in the process.

“[M.C. Dean] never used deauthentication in an effort to force anyone to buy Wi-Fi from MCD,” the company said in the filing. “Importantly, [M.C. Dean] does not even sell Wi-Fi services to individual visitors who are attending events at the BCC.”

M.C. Dean is represented by Mr. Ross and Mr. Sweet.

To read the full article, please click here

Read Time: 1 min

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Maria Woehr Aronson
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202.719.3132
maronson@wiley.law 

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