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

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> 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.  

...And which made a lot of money for Airfone and the airlines...

But which also was expensive enough that people were unlikely to pull 
out the Airfone and yak away for hours.

> 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.

Yeah, well,
a) it doesn't work
b) it puts you in a nasty conflict with customers, likely to lead to 
hard feelings (and disputes over credit card bills),
c) it creates an arms race between the would-be censors and the users, and,
d) it doesn't work and can't be made to work.


> 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.

Even given my take above, I should note that the airlines are between a 
rock and a hard place.  Between long lines for inspection, requirements 
to get to the airport 2 hours early, overcrowded seating, and various 
other problems, flying has really gotten to be a pretty unpleasant 
experience.  I've stopped.  At the same time, airlines are facing 
greatly increased costs from rising fuel prices.

I notice that airlines are pulling out of many smaller markets, leaving 
small cities with fewer airlines and fewer flights.  Some cities might 
end up with no scheduled air service at all, or once or twice a week. 
Delta recently cancelled its service from San Luis Obispo to Salt Lake 
City, and American Eagle has pulled out of SLO completely.

Anything that helps keep people busy will improve the experience, and 
being able to access the Internet, with its variety of entertainment, 
information, productivity tools, etc. is a significant improvement and 
may help lure more people back into flying -- or get them to pay the 
higher prices that airlines need to stay in the air.

And yet, Internet access has the potential to make flying _more_ 
unpleasant for the other passengers.  VoIP makes telephone calls 
virtually free (a few $/hour for IP access).  So now you may have 
teenagers, businessmen, and soccer moms on the phone for minutes and 
minutes, possibly even hours.  Anybody who's been in a public area where 
cell phones are allowed knows how unpleasant this can get -- people have 
a tendency to shout into their phones.  I don't know if this is caused 
by inadequate feedback into the earpiece, or simply that today's tiny 
phones put the microphone too far from the user's mouth.  But I ate 
dinner out a few months ago, at a non-busy time.  It was just us and one 
other single patron in the restaurant.  he proceeded to make us a gift 
of his name, address, phone number, credit card number, expiration date, 
and CVV.  If I'd cared to indulge in a little credit card fraud, it 
would have been an unresistable opportunity.

Similarly, people viewing porn (defined for this paragraph as sexually 
explicit stills or moving pictures including animation) can be a problem 
for cabin attendants, seatmates, or just passengers walking by in the 
aisle on their way to/from the bathrooms.  Our culture is so hung up on 
sex-related things that a lot of people will be offended, and may take 
their business elsewhere or even sue over a "hostile environment".  (I 
doubt this would happen in, e.g., The Netherlands, where porn of 
virtually all types(*) is taken for granted.)

So if passenger A is watching a movie of two men doing something 
improbable, and passenger B sitting next to him complains to the cabin 
attendant, what does the cabin crew do?  Remonstrate with A?  Cut off 
his Internet access?  There's going to be hard feelings no matter what 
they do.

This is an area where neutrality is likely to result in the service 
simply not being offered (or canceled within a few months).  And yet any 
form of non-neutrality is going to fail.

(*) presumably excepting child porn, which is AFAIK illegal in all 
developed countries and most of the rest of the world too.