Ocean City, Maryland is a resort town, drawing vacationers to its beaches from nearby states. As such, many of the multiunit condos are used for summer rentals, with short-term occupancy the rule. In the era of the laptop and netbook, providing free Internet access is a selling point, and OceanNet offered building owners the opportunity to have someone else install and manage a WiFi network for the guests. Unfortunately, it appears that OceanNet kept its service cheap by getting unauthorized access to Comcast’s residential service, and the cable giant is not amused—it’s suing to recover the ill-gotten gains of the WiFi provider.
We’ll leave aside the whole issue of why someone would accept technical services from a company with a website that looks like a fourth grader’s school project, and calls one page descriptions of its installs “whitepapers.” OceanNet claims to require access to a phone closet for installation of its equipment; from there, it can run its wiring and place its equipment in the ceiling or in other closets in order to provide complete coverage.
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