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."

Clearly.

[Irvu]

Clearly the Airport officials were not paying the right people enough lobbying money. I mean the FCC is perfectly willing to accept bogous legal and technical arguments for deregulation of the airwaves. And it has been happy to digest bogous arguments against community wireless. Ditto the bogous arguments for the Broadcast flag. One can only assume that Logan Airport's lobbying budget is too small or has been misspent.

Forgot the magic bullet

[yali]

...blasted airport officials for raising bogus legal and technological arguments.

Haven't these guys learned anything since 9/11? If they'd only raised bogus security arguments, they would've sailed through. Heck, the feds probably would've authorized them to shoot anybody with a BlackBerry.