Friday, January 13, 2006

Fly With Wi-Fi?

c|net's News.com is running a story about the FCC auctioning off the bandwidth currently used for the in-flight phones.

I admit that this is somewhat inevitable, as Wi-Fi Hotspots are popping up like mad all over the place. It is not all bad either, but I am not sure it is all good.

They are also considering allowing the use of personal cellular phones in-flight (as if the screaming children, and the person sitting next to you aren't enough already).

I took a few minutes and thought up some issues that might arise should this eventuality turn into reality:
  • Good thing: There are hours of entertainment on the web; it could make flights seem shorter.
  • Bad thing: The person sitting next to you is addicted to Skype, they know everyone in the world who has a phone, and they are not afraid to speak quite loudly.
  • Good thing: You can now check for that last minute email that you were dying to get (or send).
  • Bad thing: You are constantly tied to said email, and have no time to relax (same goes for the phone: See the second bullet.)
  • Good thing: Your deadline has an extension due to this available time on the flight.
  • Bad thing: Your evil, over-bearing boss (I have not had one of those for some time now) has access to you in-flight.
  • Good thing: “My laptop battery died, and I did not have a power adapter that worked on the plane. Sorry.”

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