Airports Restricting Competition for Internet Access
Should Cities Be Allowed to Block Your Airwave Access?
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Imagine if an airport declared that all food was banned -- except for food that it specifically allowed you to buy, and that food was overpriced. Does it sound fair? Who decided that it's okay to ban access to the Internet, turning it into a monopoly? Some really sick people must have made up this policy. Here are portions of a recent USA Today report. |
Sitting in the San Francisco airport last Sunday, Don DePalma checked his e-mail on his laptop. The sight was hardly unusual. Like many itinerant executives, DePalma frequently uses Wi-Fi “hot spots” in airline VIP lounges, coffee shops and other locales around the country.
But when DePalma, president of a market research firm, returns home to Boston he will find a different scene. The Massachusetts Port Authority has shut down most hot spots in Logan International Airport. American Airlines, which provides Wi-Fi access to subscribers of a nationwide service run by T-Mobile in all of its Admirals Clubs, has been told it can't in Logan. Continental is engaged in a similar fight.
Instead, the airport has granted a monopoly to one provider that charges $7.95 a day, part of which comes back to the airport.
This move is an audacious assertion of power by local government. The authority, known as Massport, does not own, control, or have any right to regulate frequencies assigned to Wi-Fi. It is rightfully being challenged at the Federal Communications Commission by airlines and telecom companies.
If Massport gets away with its frequency grab, other airports, and perhaps local jurisdictions, would no doubt follow suit. That, in turn, would do irreparable harm to one of the most important recent tech innovations.
When economists marvel at surging worker productivity in recent years, they need look no further than the 45 million Wi-Fi capable devices that will be sold this year, providing cheap and convenient access to Internet from virtually anywhere.
This remarkable technology, virtually non-existent six years ago, has flourished in a competitive and unlicensed marketplace. Turning it into a monopoly gains nothing while damaging the economy.
This case is not about the right of local government to impose taxes to fund essential public services. It is about the seizing of assets (Wi-Fi frequencies) for the purpose of destroying competition and imposing monopoly prices.
Massport claims that Wi-Fi systems -- at least those that don't provide it with a revenue stream -- could interfere with tower communications or help terrorists communicate. But that is false and is not supported in any of its filings with the FCC.
Nor does it pass the common sense test. The airwaves in and around airports are used for hundreds of purposes, including cellphones, taxicab radios and local law enforcement. Yet Massport would have us believe that only Wi-Fi (and even then, only the Wi-Fi that is not paying them) poses a problem.
Normally, this would be a slam-dunk decision for the FCC. But the five-member board is down one member, a circumstance that often leads to inaction.
This lack of direction at the FCC poses a grave threat to the future of Wi-Fi. If it becomes a monopoly, being productive while on travel will get a lot more expensive.
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