Massport criticized for WiFi shutdowns

A year after launching a roughly $8-a-day wireless Internet service, Boston's Logan International Airport is facing growing complaints that it's trying to impose a ''WiFi monopoly" at the airport.

Last month Logan ordered Continental Airlines Inc. to shut down wireless Internet access at its frequent-flier club; Continental is now urging federal regulators to overturn that ban. Some Logan travelers are also howling about an airport-mandated shutdown of WiFi service at the American Airlines Admirals Club in Terminal B. Under pressure from the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, wireless communications provider T-Mobile USA Inc. yanked its WiFi transmitters from the club earlier this summer.

Massport said it acted only out of concern for interference and security risks from having non-Massport-controlled WiFi access inside the airport.

But its moves have left Logan travelers who want a WiFi Internet connection with virtually no alternative but to pay the $7.95 daily fee for the Massport-operated airportwide access.

''It was a lousy move by Massport," said David J. Smith of Belmont, a geography-education consultant who travels internationally and wrote ''Mapping the World by Heart" and other books. Smith said he signed up for T-Mobile ''primarily so that I can have the wireless access while I am waiting for flights at Terminal B. It looks like a pattern: You can't have your own WiFi, you've got to have ours."

Continental had included Logan among 27 airports where it offered free wireless Internet access starting last year as a perk for its Presidents Club patrons. T-Mobile, which had operated the WiFi service inside Logan's American club for more than five years, charges $30 a month for unlimited usage. WiFi is short for ''wireless fidelity" and refers to systems that offer broadband-speed Internet access throughout ''hotspot" zones of about 150 feet in radius.

Angus Davis, a cofounder of computer speech technology company TellMe Networks Inc. who lives in Providence, said for years he would drive an extra hour and fly out of Logan instead of closer T. F. Green Airport specifically because of the WiFi service at the Admirals Club. ''I was outraged," Davis said, and in recent weeks the 100,000-mile-a-year American Airlines traveler has been shifting his business away from Logan. ''You have to conclude Logan would like to have a monopoly on the service there," Davis said.

Continental has urged the Federal Communications Commission to overturn the Logan ban. The FCC is taking public comments on the issue through Aug. 29 before it rules.

Last summer, racing to launch service before the Democratic convention came to Boston, Logan activated the new airportwide WiFi service in most public passenger waiting areas.

Logan provides basic airport and flight information and some news and weather content for free, but charges $7.95 a day for any additional access such as e-mail or Web surfing.

Massport spokeswoman Danny Levy denied the authority is trying to squeeze private-sector rivals out of the WiFi business at Logan, saying officials were only concerned about interference from the Continental and T-Mobile services that could affect ''critical public-safety communications" by the State Police, Massport, and the Transportation Security Administration. ''There are legitimate reasons why we're concerned about the threat to security," Levy said, but said she could not elaborate.

Levy also said Massport is willing to negotiate a ''roaming" agreement that would let T-Mobile subscribers or Continental passengers get access to the Logan-controlled network, for which T-Mobile and Continental would have to pay Massport a fee.

Both Levy and Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile's WiFi hotspot service, said that discussions are continuing, but that they have not reached any agreement.

In the meantime, many former users of the T-Mobile service are skeptical about Massport's claims it posed any interference threat.

''That's just nonsense," said Alan E. Gold, a frequent American Airlines traveler out of Logan. Gold, chief marketing officer for Avotus Corp., a Burlington telecommunications consulting firm, has been involved in wireless communications technology for more than a decade.

Noting that private WiFi services are available at dozens of other airports around the country, and the technology is designed to allow multiple networks to coexist on different radio channels, Gold said, ''There's just no justification for the position Massport is taking. This hasn't come up as an issue at any other airport around the country that I've ever been in."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.