FCC Nixes Airport's Ban On Private Net Access

Several readers wrote to let us know about a ruling by the US Federal Communications Commission forbidding Boston's Logan Airport from shutting down airline-supplied Internet access services that compete with the airport's own, for-pay wireless coverage. From the article: "A two-year effort by Logan International Airport officials to shut down private alternatives to the airport's $8-a-day wireless Internet service was decisively rejected yesterday by federal regulators, who blasted airport officials for raising bogus legal and technological arguments."

Comments

Re:I'm glad.... I think....

[mspohr]

The FCC was involved because Massport had complained to the FCC that the WiFi service would interfere with other radios... the FCC rightly said this was shenanigans.

Re:I'm glad.... I think....

[Brickwall]

Did you RTFA? Massport appealed to the FCC to shut down Continental, saying that the competing WiFi could compromise both ATC and other 'public safety' communication systems (note: the FAA has nothing to do with these other systems). It wasn't a case of the FCC sticking their nose in; Massport was trying to use the FCC to achieve their monopoly aim.

And the issue of whether a property owner can dictate that you must use their WiFi system is not the slam-dunk you think it is. If you rent an apartment, your landlord has certain rights on how you can use it (e.g. you can't run a restaurant in it) but can't tell you you have to buy mobile phones from him. To use your Starbucks example, you can't go into Starbucks and order a pizza from Dominos, but Starbucks also cannot tell you you can only read magazines purchased from them.