[ NNSquad ] Re: [IP] Does AA VoIP usage violate the "federal Internet policy"

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

I have not yet taken a "formal" public position on the issue of phone
calls from planes.  This seems to be an issue that has only come to
a head with the threat of largescale phone usage -- it did not seem
to be a big controversy when restricted to (expensive and limited)
use of Airfone services.  

However, blocking of protocols is going to open up the same can of
worms we're dealing with now in the ground-based Internet.  Will
people try to do high-traffic P2P from the air?  Surely some will,
unwittingly if nothing else.  Of more concern to me is word I've just
received claiming that American Airline flight attendants have asked
the airline to install filters to prevent passengers from viewing
"porn" (however that is to be defined) due to concerns for
passengers who can see other passengers' screens.  That potentially
gets us into *all* of the controversies about Internet filtering
that I won't bother to rehash here.  

Fundamentally, my take on this is that if you're going to allow access
to the Internet on planes, attempts to control that access with anything
other than application-independent total throughput management is a
recipe for a real mess that the airlines don't really need right now.

--Lauren--
NNSquad Moderator