On Sat, May 04, 2002 at 04:03:32AM -0500, Jim Thompson wrote:
>
> There are free airports in the world. You've been in them.
Very few.
> they form coalitions, nee 'Pass-one', or the align themselves with
> carriers, or the duck into airports alongside another concession.
Since WISPr didn't seem to fizzle into anything, it's either P1 or join
up with Sky (unless you consider hUa still a player). I think it's too
early to determine which of these routes is appropriate. Its almost a
hybrid between a cellular carrier roaming agreement meets internet
exchange point peering policy.
It would seem to lean more towards a cellular background (PTSN calls
cost the carrier money, while in-network calls don't {assuming they have
their "own network" between POPs, etc}). Hotspot'ers may own the
equipment, but none of the US companies are in bed with their
xDSL/cable/T1 upstream ISP. Funny how this is very different in Europe
and Asia.
I REALLY like to hear more about how the cellular industry deals with
this (besides acquiring competition). Halfway around the world,
subscriber Bill Woodcock schooled me in a number of issues on Internet
Exchange Points. Check out related presentations at
<http://www.pch.net/documents/>.
If we base this on Internet history; it will be a mixture of coalitions
(iPass, GRIC), carriers (Worldcom, Sprint, MFN) and those that don't
give in (AOL).
> But all of this is a situation that the airports created for
> themselves.
I agree, I hate how the "new SFO" has zero windows in the international
terminal I was in. I guess that's part of 9/11 security, no more
verifying when the flight actually arrives (unless you tune into ground
and/or tower comms; note, next time bring father's Icom transceiver).
> p.s. the first (public) wireless 802.11b in any airport anywhere *was* free.
But was it run by a free wireless company? ;)
--
Matt Peterson Bay Area Wireless Users Group
Founder <http://www.bawug.org/>
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