"Tampa Airport Thinks FCC Rules Don't Apply"

Monday, November 15, 2004

Tampa Airport Thinks FCC Rules Don't Apply
By Glenn Fleishman
Wi-Fi Networking News (WA)


The Tampa International Airport apparently thinks the FCC rule that
landlords can't control unlicensed spectrum doesn't apply to them: The
airport is retaining legal counsel to deal with the issue, which was settled
definitively by the FCC earlier this year. We wrote about this decision in
June. I don't see much leeway in the FCC stating it has exclusive authority
to resolving matters, and that rules prohibit landlords from placing
restrictions. 

The article quotes the airport's executive director's position. "There's
been talk that airports do not have the authority to regulate
telecommunications services within the airport," said Louis E. Miller,
executive director of Tampa International Airport. "We think that's
ridiculous." Fascinating that an FCC ruling would be dismissed as "talk." If
this makes it to federal court, it's certainly possible that a court could
rule the FCC doesn't have this authority, but it seems doubtful, as the FCC
has such a broad mandate covering this issue. There were numerous lawsuits
about condos and satellite TV antennas, and the FCC appears to have
definitively resolved that in their own favor.

Here's a great equivocation from a trade association that seems to side with
the airport: While the FCC does have the authority for frequency regulation,
it does not stop an airport from "managing" the usage of spectrum, said Bill
Belt, director of technical regulatory affairs for The Telecommunications
Industry Association. The Web site for this group shows it advocates
market-based regulation of spectrum. The board of directors doesn't seem to
represent any particular landlord/airport bias, either: Lucent, Cisco, IBM,
and Intel are all on the board.


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