Wireless in LA
A few observations from the recent Wireless Airport Association inaugural meeting in Los Angeles ...
By Author
March 2001
• Wireless in airports can mean many things. It can mean Internet
to passengers, management for airports, information for airlines. The
problem today is that the payoff for passengers is generally agreed to
be a year or two away.
Adding to the confusion is that there are
no standards for products and means of transmitting data. Do you spend
a gazillion dollars and go bust, or risk missing the boat by being conservative?
• Bigger time players are now coming
into our sector: Michael Dell was in the welcoming video clip; Cisco Systems
is diving right in. Strange by their absence are traditional airport players,
Honeywell and Motorola.
• Much debate focused on the business
models that should be used for Internet access. Who pays and in what format?
Neptune free-access and advertising driven, or Wayport and Mobilestar
subscription services?
• There is a clash of cultures here.
When one speaker spoke of carriers, some in the audience were thinking
United and American, others were thinking AT&T.
For more information, contact the American
Association of Air-port Executives at (703) 824-0500 or www.airportnet.org.
— P.B.
