Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Massport Continues to Fight For a WiFi Monopoly

As reported in yesterday's Boston Gobe,
Logan International Airport officials' [Logan is operated by Massport] ongoing quest to ban airline lounges from offering passengers free WiFi Internet services is angering a growing array of powerful Capitol Hill lobbying groups, who say Logan could set a dangerous nationwide precedent for squelching wireless services.

At least they've dropped the argument that blocking competing free WiFi would help keep terrorists (presumably cheap or poor terrorists who couldn't afford Massport's $7.95 daily charge) from communicating. They now admit that, along with a bunch of signal interference concerns to which basically no one else attaches any validity, ''Massport would also lose revenue associated with the operation of the central WiFi antenna system at Logan."

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