J.C. Penney Eliminates Free In-Store Wi-Fi to Save $7M a Year

J.C. Penney is going against the retail trend and dumping its newly installed in-store Wi-Fi. The department-store company, which invested about $12 million installing the free, publicly accessible Wi-Fi last year, will save about $7 million a year by halting the service, sources familiar with the situation told BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity. While mobile checkout devices will still use wireless internet, it won't work for the public — or for store employees’ personal phones, sources say, leading to some unhappy grumbling on Twitter.