Verizon Airfone Service In For A Rough Landing?
In a recent FCC auction for enhanced inflight wireless services, Verizon was the loser. As the parent company of the Airfone inflight phone operation, losing the auction meant Verizon would have to shut down Airfone by the year 2010. It now appears Verizon isn’t going to wait that long - Verizon says it will end its inflight commercial airline service by the end of the year.
Verizon inherited the Airfone service when it bought GTE in 2000. And it hasn’t made any profits since from the phones aboard a thousand United, US Airways, Continental and Delta Airlines aircraft. Airfone’s pricey service just wasn’t worth it - customers with their own wireless handsets were willing to hold off on making calls until landing, rather than pick up that Airfone.
And it appears Verizon was going to have to retrofit its Airfone equipment on commercial planes within the next two years - just to stay on board those planes through 2010. Not a sensible investment. And with its ongoing video rollout, plus broadband and wireless businesses, Airfone was more of a nuisance than a core business.
But while Verizon isn’t going to continue inflight commercial operation of its Airfone service, there is still a chance that the operation could be sold off or a partnership made, perhaps involving AirCell, one of the winners of that FCC auction. And Airfone’s separate service to private and government aircraft will apparently remain on the air, in the air, for now.
[via New York Times]
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