The Industrial Telecommunications Association (ITA) wants the FCC to declare that airports can't restrict airlines use of unlicensed spectrum in airports: Airports want to coordinate spectrum, but their networks might not be optimized for the airlines' needs, and the airlines claim that they can build their own networks more cheaply and quickly, the Computerworld article says. The ITA and members like United Airlines say airports are motivated entirely by revenue, not coordination or utility.

A couple of interesting tidbits emerge about airline deals, too, that might explain why AT&T Wireless charges $70 per month for unlimited access to their Wi-Fi network, including $10 per day for airport usage: they pay Denver International Airport $250,000 per month or $3 million per year for the right to operate the network. Nokia built the network and paid DIA fees until they could exit, and turn off the business to an operator.

AT&T Wireless would need 300,000 sessions a year just to gross enough money in Denver to pay those costs; I can't imagine who signed off on that decision. Its one of two AT&T Wireless airports (the other is Philadelphia), although both Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and AT&T Wireless said months ago that they would be taking over Seatac's Wi-Fi network from Wayport--we haven't heard anything since. AT&T Wireless also resells access to Wayport's airports.

Boston negotiated a much smaller fee for Logan: a minimum of $200,000 in the first year and $300,000 by the fifth. The article says that the deal calls for 20 percent of gross revenue if it exceeds these amounts and that the company estimates that could eventually be $1 million per year. Maybe. That would require $5,000,000 in gross revenue. Based on the sea change in the market, that might be impossible to achieve.

Logan would need to either get as many as five million sessions a year at a buck a pop to gross that much, or find, say, 50 resellers willing to pay a flat rate of, say, about $8,000 a month each to gain access to Logan as part of a reseller network if they followed the Wayport model. Both seem implausible.