April 27th, 20093 bidders for new Canadian Air-Ground spectrum auction
The surprise? Bell is not among them. The following 3 bidders have put up a million bucks in deposit to bid on the “849-851 MHz and 894-896 MHz for Air-Ground Services”
- MTS Allstream Inc.
- Sky Surf Canada Communications Inc.
- Wair Inc.
This is a relatively narrow bit of spectrum but enough, in theory, to pump up some broadband wireless from the ground to the air. As in internet on Air Canada (and maybe westjet, porter etc.). A couple airlines offer the service in the US already (Delta, Virgin and soon Air Canada too actually). Bear in mind it’s not quite as easy to do the same thing in Canada. A) Canada is big B) There’s lots of pretty big empty parts C) there’s fewer planes in the sky to drive economies of scale. That being said, with only 2Mhz each way, maybe you don’t want to many other planes sharing your airwaves.
Those of you oldtimers (2006ish) may remember and lament the old Boeing conexion satelite internet service. Sadly it came and went before it’s time. Those were the days before *everyone* had a wifi device (or three) and, more crucially, before power plugs on aircraft seatbacks (major FAIL). But, unlike ground to air, satelite internet worked on long haul transatlantic flights quite nicely.
Previously on WirelessNorth.ca: Woo! AirCanada bringing in flight wireless
