JetBlue wins wireless license auction bid to offer in-flight WiFi

Posted Jun 2nd 2006 6:23PM by Michael Sciannamea
Filed under: WiFi, Government, Applications, Business

The offering of WiFi services to passengers while in-flight is still not a given, but if the FAA and FCC ever come to some sort of consensus on the idea, then look for JetBlue Airways to quickly become one of the market leaders in this area.

The FCC recently held an auction that put licenses up for bid allowing companies to buy spectrum space that could eventually give them the opportunity to offer WiFi in-flight. JetBlue bid $7 million for a 1-megahertz wireless license. That seems like a pittance when compared to what a subsidiary of AirCell shelled out for a 3-megahertz license ($31.3 million), but JetBlue, which is one of the few profitable airline companies around, is certainly looking toward the future when it comes to offering value-added services to their passengers.

Reader Comments

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1. Your site is very cognitive. I think you will have good future.:)
http://www.johnbeck.tv/tax-foreclosures.html

Posted at 3:17AM on Jun 9th 2006 by Smit

2. they should have used a penny auction instead.. ;)

example: http://bidstick.com

Posted at 9:22PM on May 28th 2010 by mike furl

3. Now it's pretty common for all airplanes to have in flight wifi connections. It's amazing how far we've come since 2006. http://pennyauctionscam.org

Posted at 11:57PM on Jan 1st 2011 by Tom Young

4. Two things:
Great one is that this will be a nice service provided by the JetBlue
Bad one is that we (as end users) will end up paying back everything they gave for this auction. I wish they used reverse auctions http://www.oltiby.com for this bidding.

Posted at 11:18PM on Apr 28th 2007 by ActStar

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