Inflight telecom story continues

Starting here -





Ending here -



Did you hear about this yet?

LiveTV Announces Agreement to Purchase Verizon Airfone Network

I missed that press release yesterday, but it was NOT a big secret that they were working a deal. I noticed this possible deal being mentioned back in April.

Well as the xfoners know, the path ending at LiveTV was not a simple "lets sell off Airfone" thing. The FCC auction results back in 2006 dictated because of the license handoff that some change in Airfone's operation would occur. I still wonder why Aircell didn't work the deal instead of LiveTV. It makes sense that someone would take advantage of the Airfone network that is up and running.

Here's a quote from someone the xfoners will remember :

"Airfone is the industry leader in in-flight communications. We are pleased we can continue to support our existing valued General Aviation customers, and we are excited to play a role in LiveTV's efforts to bring email and messaging services to commercial airline passengers," said Michael Kuehn, Vice President Marketing and Sales of Verizon Airfone.

General Aviation seems to have played as big a role (or bigger?) in this deal as the existing ground network did.

There is a good number of reports around the net about this. Some of them show a not so high opinion of Airfone held by some. Here's a title from one of those.

Verizon finally dumps Airfone on LiveTV

"dumps" - Hmm they sound negative? Every deal has potential to go good or bad. This one makes sense to me.