Heading to Ottawa for a CIRA meeting, watching Argentina vs. Netherlands on the 'puter via wifi and a slingbox. 24:13 in. Both teams playing well.

Feed sorta dodgy, but on the whole...man, this ROCKS.

ps: If you applied for a spot on the CIRA Board, we are meeting to discuss who we will put forward tomorrow.

GO HOLLAND!

Update: here's a sample of the quality of the picture. Not bad, for wifi on a moving train.

Update 2: Ended in a 0-0 tie. Caught the last bit here in the Ottawa train station. Is this the future of media? Well, something like this sure feels likely...

Tags: slingbox, worldcup, train

I am really surprised that what is potentially the biggest breakthrough in inflight customer-facing technology since the overhead light - and a new revenue source, to boot - has been met with abject silence in the traditional and online media. Although kudos to Matt Lake at CNet for attempting to surface it.

FCC Auction 65, or the sale of bandwidth in the 800MHz radio telephone range, has the potential to change everything about the travel experience and make a bunch of people a lot of money, and yet nobody's talking about it. Why does it matter? Because this spectrum sale will pave the way to airborne WiFi in the USA.

Inflight internet isn't new. Lufthansa has led the way with what I believe is the biggest install of the Conexxion by Boeing service of airborne WiFi. Many other carriers offer it to a limited extent as well. In the past, I've even used Verizon's inflight dial-up in the US to access limited internet services. But did you know that no airline or provider can offer WiFi in the US because the bandwidth to operate it has not been made available by the FCC?

That's what this auction is about. And as opposed to the last go-round when those poor sucker cellphone providers spent jillions to put lonely little phones in the backs of people's seats, this time the winner seems likely to get some serious spoils. So far, the bids are up to US$38 million.

I can tell you having used the Lufthansa / Boeing service, it's pretty sweet. I watched streaming video, IM-ed, could have VOIP-ed if I wanted to, know people who have used Slingbox to watch their home TV channels over the Atlantic and in fact I even SMS-ed my wife when I learned that we would be landing in Newfoundland to deplane a sick passenger on board. Will the impact on flying in the US be immediate? No. Airlines - especially US airlines - are cheap and service additions aren't at the top of the To Do list. But massive change starts somewhere, and in my estimation a massive change in flying is starting with FCC Auction 65.

Thanks Phil for alerting me to this.

Tags: fccauction65, fcc, boeing, lufthansa, airborneinternet