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Author Topic: BT employing Wi-Fi police!  (Read 8755 times)

asbokid

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BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« on: August 06, 2012, 02:18:00 PM »

Draconian 'Wi-Fi police' stalk Olympic Games
August 3, 2012
The Age
by Asher Moses


All unauthorised Wi-Fi networks including smartphone hotspots are banned from Olympic venues.
Photo: Sadao Turner Esq

You've probably heard of the overzealous Olympic Games "brand police" harassing old ladies making Olympic cakes and other shop owners getting into the Olympic spirit, but how about the "Wi-Fi police"?

The Olympics brand is the second most valuable brand in the world at $US45 billion.

Sponsors pay tens of millions of pounds to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for exclusive rights to spruik their wares around London and beyond, and the IOC will stop at nothing to protect those revenue streams.

BT is the "official communications services provider" for the Olympics and has 1500 Wi-Fi hotspots at Olympic sites, with prices starting from £5.99 for 90 minutes. It's the largest single Wi-Fi venue installation in Britain, according to BT.

To protect this lucrative deal - and presumably minimise any potential technical interference - LOCOG, the London Olympics organising committee, has banned "personal/private wireless access points and 3G hubs" from Olympic venues.

Want to create a wireless hotspot on your smartphone so you can get online on your laptop or tablet in between matches? That's prohibited, as are portable Wi-Fi hotspot devices.

Sadao Turner Esq, director of new media for TV personality Ryan Seacrest's production company, tweeted a photo of the "Olympics Wi-Fi police" that are charged with seeking out unauthorised Wi-Fi hotspots with big red detectors.

The absurdities don't end there. According to Britain's Daily Telegraph, Fish and chip stalls have been advised they are not allowed to serve chips on their own without fish as McDonald's is the official chip maker of the Games. The Independent reported that the ban on chips extended to 800 retailers at the 40 Olympic venues.

Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers have been patrolling London enforcing the multimillion-dollar marketing deals signed with companies such as Visa, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonald's and BP.

Only official sponsors who have paid a certain amount of money are permitted to use Olympic Games trademarks in their advertising.

Under laws specifically passed for the London Games, the brand army has rights to enter shops and business premises and bring courts actions and fines up to £20,000.

Words such as "Olympic", "gold", "silver", "bronze", "sponsors", "summer" and "London" have been banned from business advertisements so as not to give the impression they are connected to the Olympics. Even pubs can't have signs displaying brands of beer that are not official sponsors.

LOCOG has previously said that the sponsor rights were acquired by companies for millions of pounds and this helped support the staging of the games. It said people who sought the same benefits for free by "engaging in ambush marketing or producing counterfeit goods" were effectively depriving the games of revenue.

From a public relations perspective, this hasn't played well with Londoners, who could breach the legislation simply by getting into the spirit of the games. Residents have also missed out on tickets only to see rows of empty seats in sections reserved for sponsors.

Today they are reading rumours that just 15 Games organisers spent $70,000 on lunch.  :o

To see why Olympics organisers go to such lengths to protect sponsors you only have to follow the money. The Olympics brand is the second most valuable brand in the world at $US45 billion, according to a study by consultants Brand Finance.

Apple is the only brand ahead of it, worth $US70 billion. Both maintain this value by going after anyone they perceive to be using their trademarks.

The Olympics brand has increased in value by 87 per cent since the Beijing Games, largely off the back of a rise in broadcast rights - deals which punters complain are also preventing them from fully enjoying the Games. Ticketholders have also been told not to post photos or videos of matches to social networking sites.

Matthew Gain, digital director of public relations agency Edelman, said there was a "fine line that needs to be tread" between the commercial realities and the ability of consumers to enjoy the Games.

The Olympics are expensive to run and sponsors provide a chunk of the cash, so they expect that competitors won't be able to get the same or similar benefits for free.

"However at the same time you don't want to protect that investment so much that you piss off everyone," he said.

"You've got to keep sensible about it and you've got to remember that the moment that you as a brand by protecting your own brand start inhibiting consumer choice and consumer behaviour ... then that's when you start risking impacting and affecting your brand."

So have organisers gone too far in this instance? "Some of the protection of the stuff in the UK where you've seen the local cake shop being told that they need to stop displaying the Olympic rings cake that they've made and put in the window is perhaps a little bit too far," said Gain.

"I think if it's a mum and dad business that's not really benefiting from the Olympics but getting into the Olympic spirit ... that's probably where you've gone a little bit too far."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/draconian-wifi-police-stalk-olympic-games-20120803-23jdc.html


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HPsauce

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2012, 02:26:11 PM »

What a load of twaddle!
Even the photo looks like something from a Star Trek convention.   ???

Empty seats have pretty much been shown to be down to "The Olympic Family" and not sponsors at all.  ;)

As for
Quote
According to Britain's Daily Telegraph
  :lol:
To make it really authoritative it should have quoted The Daily Mail.  :angel:
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asbokid

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2012, 03:26:31 PM »

What a load of twaddle!
Even the photo looks like something from a Star Trek convention.   ???

Hehe!

According to Mark Tyson writing on Hexus [1], it is apparently a modified version of this antenna.. [2]



But does it work or not?   Maybe it's like the myth of TV Detector Vans. Supposedly bristling with high tech equipment to sniff out the use of unlicensed televisions. But, in truth, the TVLA vans are just ordinary Ford Transits with blacked-out windows!  Just propaganda to frighten people into paying up.

Quote
Empty seats have pretty much been shown to be down to "The Olympic Family" and not sponsors at all.  ;)

"Olympic Family"? I'm a bit out of touch, yet to watch any of the Olympic games.  Got disillusioned after Our Wayne was disqualified from the England U12 Catapulting Team.  :D

Quote
As for ..According to Britain's Daily Telegraph..  :lol:
To make it really authoritative it should have quoted The Daily Mail.  :angel:

Sour grapes from the Ozzies, too, maybe?!  Isn't there some sort of squabble with them over the cycling races?  This is their riposte?!

£5.99 for 90 mins wifi access still seems a touch on the high side, even for BT.  Though for those with enough money to attend the dullest event of the sporting calendar, it's probably just a drop in the ocean!

EDIT:  Hadn't realised what a racket (pardon the pun) the whole Games are..  So many selfish rules to protect vested interests..  First, these rules forbidding “personal/private wireless access points and 3G hubs”, and even rules forbidding camera lenses over 30cm from being taken into the venues, etcetera..

cheers, a

[1] http://hexus.net/business/news/internet/43281-the-olympics-wi-fi-police-pictured-hunt/
[2] http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/product/he300.html
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 10:28:30 PM by asbokid »
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HPsauce

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oldfogy

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2012, 04:14:23 PM »

Empty seats at Olympic games is nothing new, there was a documentary on the TV fairly recently that showed the statistics over a number of years and there was not one particular Olympic meeting that ever had the turnout that they had not only catered for but also hoped to receive.

Maybe because its' being pushed down our home throats is the only reason why we are aware of it, compared to other countries events which we never really got to hear about.
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asbokid

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2012, 04:15:44 PM »

"Locog plans to recycle tickets and ensure that seats are filled by military personnel and local children,"

A conscripted audience. Sheesh!  And court-marshalling for any going AWOL?!  An obvious breach of human rights. Forced to watch nine hour sessions of women's discus?  An inhuman and degrading treatment by the standards of any Court!  :D

cheers, a
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 08:27:35 PM by asbokid »
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renluop

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2012, 07:15:28 PM »

I love the bit about "no chips without fish". Are OxO cubes still made? Me thinks that the manufacturing machinery could be used next games for making free fish cubes: one free with each helping of chips! ::) ;D
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kitz

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2012, 09:00:59 PM »

Quote
Want to create a wireless hotspot on your smartphone so you can get online on your laptop or tablet in between matches? That's prohibited, as are portable Wi-Fi hotspot devices.

How ridiculous.  :o   
Then, when I saw the photo I seriously checked the date to make sure it wasnt April 1st. :-X
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asbokid

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2012, 10:18:33 PM »

Empty seats at Olympic games is nothing new, there was a documentary on the TV fairly recently that showed the statistics over a number of years and there was not one particular Olympic meeting that ever had the turnout that they had not only catered for but also hoped to receive.

Maybe because its' being pushed down our home throats is the only reason why we are aware of it, compared to other countries events which we never really got to hear about.

Some events seem more popular than others. The arena was packed to the roof for the Women's Beach Volleyball.  Can't think why.  ::)


cheers, a
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 12:55:25 AM by asbokid »
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HPsauce

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2012, 10:20:21 PM »

Remember "The Age" is published in Melbourne and they're a little "touchy" about not being high up in the medals table or beating The Pom's.   :-X
The medals table on their home page does show GB in 3rd place though.  ;D
And Australia 19th.  :lol:
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HPsauce

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2012, 10:22:14 PM »

The arena was packed to the roof for the Women's Beach Volleyball.
It was equally packed this evening for the Men's too so don't jump to conclusions, your "thinking" may be flawed...  >:D
(my wife and daughter were there and confirmed it was totally full)
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asbokid

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Re: BT employing Wi-Fi police!
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2012, 10:32:13 PM »

The arena was packed to the roof for the Women's Beach Volleyball.
It was equally packed this evening for the Men's too so don't jump to conclusions, your "thinking" may be flawed...  >:D
(my wife and daughter were there and confirmed it was totally full)

Oh heck.. Men's Beach Volleyball? Eugh!  Now those photos I do not want to see  :no:  Should be banned. Disgusting.  :D
Someone should complain to the Daily Mail  ::)


cheers, a
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 10:35:41 PM by asbokid »
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