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December 15, 2004

Cutting the Wires

Good news: The FCC is getting ready to approve air-blogging. Bad news: it's going to take two years and be very expensive.

They may even approve cell-phone use, so someday, people will read this passage from On Paradise Drive...

...workaholic corporate types boarding airplanes while talking on their cell phones in a sort of panic because they know that when the door closes they have to turn their precious phone off and it will be like somebody stepped on their trachea.

... and ask, wistfully, "you mean there was a time when they couldn't use cell phones on a plane?" You mean there was a time when I didn't have to listen to the next Donald Trump yell over a jet engine into his phone and into my ear all the way from Washington to Los Angeles?

Hold the champagne for a little bit, though. It's more of the same: "why, what would they need us bureaucrats for if we let people make these decisions on their own?"

The FCC approved a measure to restructure how frequencies for such "air-to-ground" services are used and allow the airlines to offer wireless high-speed Internet connections.

Left undecided was the issue of how many companies the FCC would allow, through an auction, to offer such services. Verizon Airfone maintains that letting one company handle the service would ensure the best quality, and existing technology can't support two competitors.

Others, including Boeing Co. and AirCell, argue for two competitors to prevent one company from having a monopoly. FCC officials said the auction would take place within a year.

Once plans are completed and planes outfitted with the equipment, wireless high-speed Internet access might be found on commercial domestic flights by 2006, said Jack Blumenstein, chairman and CEO of Louisville, Colo.-based AirCell.

I know this is too much to expect, but, guys, what about allowing the airlines and the phone companies to figure this out? You'd have more plans, newer technology, maybe even ways of sharing frequencies. Personally, a duopoly has never impressed me as being much better than a monopoly: the weaker company knows you're only keeping it around because you have to.

There's no reason to believe that the FCC will be as good at setting technical or performance standards, price levels, or terms, as airlines who are grasping for any source of revenue they can think of. There's absolutely no reason to wait until 2006 to get this thing going.

Posted by joshuasharf at December 15, 2004 12:44 PM | TrackBack
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