Not only has the Federal Communications Commission decided to give fliers high-speed Internet connections while airborne, they've also agreed to look into relaxing the current ban on using cell phones in the air.
The FCC said December 15 that they were adopting "a flexible approach" for licensing the 4 MHz of spectrum within the 800 MHz band now marked for commercial air travel, and would auction new licenses for that broadband spectrum while also agreeing to limit eligibility to prevent a single company or interest from holding licenses for all of the bandwidth.
"The world of wireless telecommunications has seen immense technological and marketplace developments in the last decade," FCC chairman Michael Powell said, announcing the airborne high-speed Internet. "During that time, however, our rules for the 800 MHz commercial air-ground service has been locked in a narrowly defined technological and regulatory box and have kept passengers from using their wireless devices on planes. Nearly every party in the air-ground proceeding has commented that the existing band plan and our rules have hindered the provision of services that are desired by the public onboard aircraft."
Powell also said the exact configuration would be determined by the winning license bidders. He also said the FCC "should not" dictate business plans or "interference tolerance" by choosing only one band plan. "Licenses of all shapes and sizes," he said, "should be permitted in this service.
The three band plans the FCC will consider include two overlapping, cross-polarized 3 MHz licenses (A and B); an exclusive 3 MHz license, and an exclusive 1 MHz license (C and D); and, an exclusive 1 MHz license and an exclusive 3 MHz license (E and F), with blocks at opposite ends from C and D.
"We must remember the cellular duopoly days and the bricks and bag phones that existed then," he continued. "That is why we need to do more to provide more choices and multiple platforms for communications between the air and the ground to satisfy the demand for better, high speed services.
"The fact is that we only have one provider left in this air-ground band, one provider authorized to provide broadband aeronautical services over a satellite platform, and one provider using the cellular bands for air-ground services. We need to do better and that is why we will soon be considering pending applications and a rulemaking to authorize more satellite providers and why we have asked questions in our ongoing 3G proceeding about the possibility of air-ground services in those bands."
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps said he saw both good and bad in the plan. The good, he said, was the potential for giving airlines and their flying customers new communications technologies, since current air-to-ground narrowband had not filled expectations and was too high priced and limited to voice, while new airborne broadband could give more diversity of communications services, including email, Web access, and better homeland security communications.
But Copps also said he was concerned that the way the FCC decided to launch the plan risked creating the very monopoly Powell said it hoped to avoid.
"[Our order] creates an auction where one company can lock up the only license that can support a true broadband air-to-ground service," Copps said. "That means that if a company bids enough, it can exclude all other competitors, leaving airlines with only one possible supplier and passengers with no choice. Experience shows that if a company has the chance to buy a monopoly license, it will pay a premium for it. That is because it allows them, with one fell swoop, to ensure that competitors will not be able to keep prices down or force them to innovate."
The FCC also said it wanted to ease the ban on using cell phones while airborne while making sure they didn't cross wires with the Federal Aviation Administration, which is reviewing its own policies that include limits on cell phones and other portable electronic devices while airborne to keep from interfering with onboard communications and navigation equipment.
"Today we live in an increasingly mobile world and Americans are demanding greater access to wireless services and applications," Powell said about the proposal to ease back on the airborne cell phone ban. "This Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) is an important step in achieving the Commission’s goal of fostering the development of technologies that will increase America’s communications options – in this particular case, communications between wireless handsets airborne and on the ground – while ensuring that terrestrial systems are not subject to harmful interference…
"Although operation of wireless devices aboard aircraft remains subject to Federal Aviation Administration rules and policies that restrict their use to ensure against interference to onboard communications and navigation equipment," he continued, "the adoption of this NPRM will help ensure that the Commission’s rules do not unnecessarily restrict the availability of airborne wireless services should the FAA and aircraft operators permit the use of airborne wireless devices."
Copps said the FCC needs to decide what if any jurisdiction the commission has over what he called "the annoying seatmate issue. If we are limited to an exploration of the interference environment, we must ensure that some authority, maybe the airline, is empowered to control the problem," he said.
"[M]any airline passengers don’t relish the idea of sitting next to someone yelling into their cell phones for an entire six-hour flight. I know I don’t! So I hope that consumers as well as companies will participate fully in this NPRM and let us know what they think."
