A Stitch in Haste

Here's a rarity: Me saying "Hooray for the FCC!"

Continental Airlines won a battle to offer high-speed Internet service in its frequent flier club at Boston Logan International Airport, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission ruled on Wednesday.

The FCC ruled against the Massachusetts Port Authority, or Massport, which ordered airlines in 2005 to unplug their wireless and wireline high-speed Internet services in their lounges and instead use the airport's fee-based system.
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Massport argued that Continental's free service would interfere with its network, raise safety concerns and violate lease agreements.

I can't speak to MassPort's claim about its leases with airlines; subject to FAA oversight (since they are government-chartered monopolies), public airports should be free to contract with airlines, vendors and other businesses as they see fit.

But as every other airport in America demonstrates, you can easily have a safe, non-interfering wi-fi network in an airport. Whom did the Logan Airport bureaucrats think they were kidding?

This bait-and-switch money grab by Logan Airport mimics almost perfectly the recent online gambling ban. It was all about the money, so the first and most important thing that the politicians absolutely had to do was insist repeatedly that it wasn't about the money. So they invented not only false but patently absurd alternative excuses about — what else? — "risks."

The FCC will of course not be on my Christmas Card list this year (neither will Continental Airlines). But a smirkworthy incident nonetheless.