[superuser2]

Those features are legitimate when the targeted AP is illegally on the corporate LAN, impersonating the legitimate APs, and/or a personal hotspot in an environment where data exfiltration is a concern.

In places where the public goes (hotels, convention centers) they are absolutely wrong but they're still important to enterprise security on corporate campuses.

[notacoward]

You raise an interesting point. As far as I know, the law doesn't recognize concern about exfiltration as a factor distinguishing "legitimate" vs. "illegitimate" use of these features. It just makes a public vs. private distinction, and the convention spaces in question were considered private. In Smart City's response, they point out that they also provide service in public spaces, and took pains to ensure that users there weren't affected. Is that "illegitimate" in your book? How would you even craft a law that would prohibit them from doing this, without also preventing the "legitimate" corporate use you mention?

Where I think Smart City's argument falls down is not that managing the network within their private space is generally wrong or illegal. Their failure seems to have been that the users whose hotspots they were killing had entered into no agreement not to bring or use those devices. Had that been a part of the event registration, I for one might have declined to attend, but I also think the FCC might then have been right - per the law - to have decided differently.

[jsprogrammer]

Just because some people consent to you interfering with WiFi signals, doesn't mean you are allowed to do it. You'd need to completely wrap your transmitters in a Faraday cage and hold the entire convention inside it, only allowing people who have signed your bizarre and draconian contract, that allows you to interrupt their WiFi signals, in to the venue.

[acveilleux]

The FCC went out of their way to clarify that security concerns (of which exfiltration of corp data is one) were an issue, quoting the article:

> No evidence exists that the Wi-Fi blocking occurred in response to a specific security threat to Smart City’s network or the users of its network.

A corporate network could probably meet that hurdle, it's not clear however they'd get away with it if it also shut down the neighbor's wifi...

[jellicle]

"Legitimate" here may mean that you agree with the use in those cases, but don't mistake it for "legal", which it is not, at least in the last two instances. Corporate LAN is an interesting one.