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October 10, 2005

American Airlines Points Finger at Massport

By Glenn Fleishman

AA says that Massport’s alleged security concerns at Boston-Logan are just an attempt to force use of their vendor’s Wi-Fi network: Continental was earlier in a dispute over their free Wi-Fi in their membership clubs. Now American Airlines is in on the action in a filing to the FCC.

Massport’s response from a spokeswoman is laughable. Laughable!

A profusion of airline-operated WiFi signals, Levy said, could jam radio frequencies used by the State Police and Transportation Security Administration.

I am now terrified. Police and TSA are using 2.4 GHz unlicensed frequency devices for critical equipment? Heaven help us all. This is, of course, prima facie ridiculous. Wi-Fi doesn’t interfere with the bands used for public safety. The feds even have their own agency-specific bands; the TSA may be using some of those.

Even better: the TSA hasn’t complained here nor anywhere else in the United States, nor have I ever heard about police complaining anywhere in the U.S., even in airports with five or six different Wi-Fi networks.

This isn’t to say that interference among Wi-Fi devices isn’t an issue that should be dealt with through coordination policies. But Massport is trying to use obviously false security concerns to trump federal telecom and spectrum policy.

They will lose.

Posted by Glennf at October 10, 2005 10:02 AM

Categories: Air Travel

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