Apparently at least one hotel does. We had written an article hinting that this might be the case  back in 2010.  Hotel operators at the time were hurting from the loss of phone call charges as customers turned to their cell phones, and were looking for creative ways to charge for Internet service.

Hence I was not surprised to see this article today.

FCC: Marriott blocked guests’ personal Wi-Fi, charged for Net access

Federal Communications Commission fines Marriott $600,000 after deciding it illegally interfered with conventiongoers’ hot spots in Nashville. Marriott says it did nothing wrong.

In its judgment, the FCC said “Marriott employees had used containment features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system at the Gaylord Opryland to prevent individuals from connecting to the Internet via their own personal Wi-Fi networks, 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.”

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