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WiFi At Logan Airport Leads To Turf War
lucabrasi999 writes "Yahoo News is running an Associated Press story on how Boston's Logan International Airport is the site of a battle between the Massachusettes Port Authority and Continental Airlines. Seems that Massport, which runs a pay wireless service at the airport, doesn't want Continental to provide free wireless service to the members of its frequent flier club. Massport claims Continental's free service interferes with its pay service. This battle is now in the hands of the FCC." From the article: "Last month, a Massport attorney warned the airline that its antenna 'presents an unacceptable potential risk' to Logan's safety and security systems, including its keycard access system and state police communications. Massport told the airline it could route its wireless signals over Logan's Wi-Fi signal, at a 'very reasonable rate structure.' In response, however, Continental said using Logan's Wi-Fi vendor could force the airline to start charging its customers for the service."
They seem to know how the exact same wireless signal is going to interfere in the safety of the airport just because it has a different name on it. I can understand asking them to perhaps use a different channel, but they're presumably using the same 802.11 technologies.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I got into a rather heated battle a while back on HardForum about legal rights on wireless security, and somebody posted up a lot of the FCC guidelines for 802.11[insertflavorhere]. Basically what I got out of it was that as long as you are using FCC approved equipment, its really up to everybody else to figure things out for themselves. I might be wrong on this, but I thought that the FCC tried as hard as it could to keep itself out of situations exactly like this.
You sir, have my complete support, regardless of the karma costs. My last flight involved 3 hours of waiting and I didn't break out the laptop till the begining of hour two. If I could get from the airport entrance (Here in Atlanta) to my plane in an hour or so I'd be completely content to be without wireless in the airport, but I've had to wait up to 14 hours before due to delays. Although WIFI costs are probably insignificant compared to the costs involved with speeding things up, I'd still like to see more effort in that area.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
I personally would like to discuss a story without (as much) mudslinging and namecalling and without stupid images being posted that bog down my (broadband) connection and make it take forever for the discussions to come up. It's also a lot easier to read on a forum that supports thread indenting.
I mean, c'mon, why do we need to see a bazillion copies of some stupid pirate? What does that have to do with whatever's being discussed?
i am a soviet space shuttle
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
I wish the summary had included this quote as well:
I find this type of behavior disgusting, too. It's yet another case of one business trying to interfere with another business's services any way they can to make a few more pennies, and the real loser in the battle ends up being the consumer.
If the FCC is stupid enough to side with Logan on this, Continental Airlines should hang big signs all over its lounges and gates saying something to the effect of, "Logan International Airport is keeping us from offering wireless Internet service for free because they would rather make you pay them $7.95 a day. Please write to Craig P. Coy, CEO at One Harborside Drive, Suite 200 S, East Boston, MA 02128-2909, and let them know how you feel about that."
But then, I can be rather mean like that when people are being stupid.
If Massport is so worried about security, they would remove the open Cat-5 jacks "hidden" in terminal C. I've seen people wait in line to plug into their free service. DHCP with access to the outside world. I'd imagine a quick 1-100 port scan of the 20+ machines visable on the network would reveal some services. One would hope these aren't true "mission critical" airport machines.
if they're offereing it to their frequernt flier club, then it's already being paid for. like when a rental car comes with "unlimited" milage. you already paid for the mileage up front. hell, my degree is econ, and finally i'm teaching it this year. it's a cost, that's all. if i'm not a freq. flier, then i don't get it. what's the confusion? it's a perk, like "free coffee". it's just part of operating costs. if "free wifi" entices me to fly continental, i've already paid for it. duh.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Nope, the restriction on using cell phones on planes has nothing to do with the FAA, never has. The restriction on using electronic devices is an FAA issue but the cell phone restriction has always been FCC.
The reason the cell phone restriction was introduced was the early cell systems had not been designed to cope with people moving from one cell to another at 600 mph. So to avoid the cost of fixing their systems the carriers got the FCC to pass the regulation prohibiting use of cell phones on planes. Then they pursaded the airlines to install the GTE Airphone systems charging $5/min.
Many airlines attribute the rule to the FAA in their pre-flight announcements but that just shows they didn't check the real source. I found out about all this talking to the lawyers for a large airplane company working on putting Internet service in planes. i think they are more likely to be right than the stewardess reading from a card.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That's all well and good, but layovers happen. I fly out of a small, one-hub airport every time I fly, and am usually in Pittsburgh airport for 3 or more hours.
However, they have FREE WiFi throughout the airport. That's what irks me about the money-grubbing pricks at Massport, and will make sure I will do my best to avoid Logan when traveling.
Many airports have free WiFi, or at least free ethernet jacks to plug into nowadays. I think Continental is going a great service for their customers in providing wifi over and above the arm-twisting Logan kooks.
And like another poster said, many airlines have new express-checkin procedures. USAirways, which I usually fly, has kiosks that print out tickets. The weakest link then becomes TSA.
It seems you view flying just as a matter of O&D origin and destination. If that's all your flying need, than you are not the targeted demograph of Airport Wi-Fi or Private Airline lounges.
The U.S. legacy carriers had developed the spoke and hub route system into an art. However to reduce air traffic congestion and improve on-time perforamance, most airlines are "de-peaking," spread out the arrival and departure of flights. That's in comparsion to the old system of clusters flights together into few "flight banks" a day. Results is we usually have to wait longer for our connection flights at hubs. And even before this new development, there are always routes where one have to deal with long connection time due to flight schedule.
Also, it's often nice to have a few hours of layover to break-up long flights. I am United Airline MileagePlus 1K flyer, that means I flew over 100,000 miles last year. For example, when I travel San Francisco to Singapore, I actually like the fact I have to change plane at Tokyo Narita. I can take the 16 hours LAX-SIN flight with Singapore Airline, but that's just sitting too long for me. I like the fact I can fly 10 hours SFO-NRT, walk a little bit to stretch my legs, go to UA Red Carpet Club, take a shower, and yes, use the wireless internet access in RCC. That continue on 7 hours NRT-SIN.
I know I am not alone in this. There are also people who like to tough it out in a single flight (such as 19 hour JFK-BKK flight on Thai Air). But there are enough connecting travelers to make it profitable for airlines and airports to cater to our needs.
Oh, come on. BOS isn't that bad as a origin or destination. Baggage handling is slow, and US Airways *always* puts the bags on the wrong belts. (But if you know that, you can just go over to the other one automatically and beat the rush.)
As a hub, the true horror of the East Coast is PHL. Over on flyertalk.com, people in the US Airways forum don't even warn people about it anymore; anyone hanging out in a USAir frequent flyer forum already knows to avoid it like the plague. Although sometimes you'll see people mention "oh yeah, I paid an extra $100 for CLT routing to avoid PHL."
Even USAir knows this. On the current usairways.com homepage you'll see a link "New Philadelphia baggage check in times", which leads to a page featuring "Passengers in Philadelphia must check their luggage 45 minutes prior to departure for domestic flights and 1 hour prior to international flights." Strangely enough, the overhead bins on PHL flights are always completely full of carry-on luggage....
For various stupid reasons, I did book one of those "10% On-Time Arrival Performance" flights last week. But that's only because I wasn't going to have checked bags, and enough flights I could go standby on if something went wrong. Well, predictably enough, the flight got delayed by an hour. To their credit, the gate agents actually did tell us this rather than insisting at 6pm that our 6pm flight was still going to make an "on-time departure".
I haven't had very good experiences with Newark either, but it's at least friendlier than PHL.
Posting anonymously since I really can't afford to piss off US Air.
Reading the article carefully, it comes down to a landlord/tenant contract dispute between Logan and Continental. The airport says it's a violation of the lease, Continental says it's not. From the FCC standpoint, both WiFi access points are on an equally poor footing: as Part 15 devices they have the lowest priority at 2.4GHz, behind all other authorized uses of that spectrum, such as microwave ovens. The ovens have priority at 2.4GHz: it's a designated RF wasteland for Part 18 "Industrial, Scientific and Medical" (non-communications) equipment. These aren't bothered by interference from unlicensed transmitters, which is why unlicensed WiFi was put there.