I am sitting in the recently redesigned and updated Virgin Clubhouse Lounge at Terminal 3, London Heathrow Airport, waiting for my flight to New York to be called.  This place has everything to relay and revive you before the journey ... any choice of food or drink you can imagine; sumptuously comfortable sofas and recliners; newspapers and publication from around the world and a library lined with real leather bound books; pool table, beuaty parlour, row upon row of locked-down Sony Vaios and a hushed atmosphere that befits a zone of exclusive comfort and pamper.   The only mistake (which the staff seem to have already twigged) is the bottomless buckets of sweets lined up on a counter which, judging by the two manic, hyper-active kids witing to return home that are screaming around them - are loaded with sugar and other incongruous stimulants for this placid place.  A mood-designed lighting scheme throughout and shower-rooms with hot and cold .... and its all FREE, FREE, FREE.  No charge for anything .... except of course, getting onto the Internet!!  For some peculiar reason, Mr Branson has handed that closed monopoly to T-Mobile.  Whether it is he, that great free-wheeling, market driven entrepreneur of the skys or whether it is BAA, his retail-crazed landlord - I am not sure.   But pay you must to use your PC or PDA to access anyone outside this Lounge and pay BIG.

When will landlords and property owners wake up to the fact that the telecoms cartel are stealing their 'virtual-estate'.   An airport-wide OPLAN would do so much to enhance this great and complex community - helping ot to operate more efficiently and in a far more user-friendly manner - not to mention with increased security.  But as with so many communities - cities down to housing estates - they simply have not grasped any understanding of how they might deploy the digital technologies of abundance - whether fiber or wireless - under a business model that yields them greater benefit and potential profit than simply signing an exclusive contract with an old-world telecom operator.   The OPLAN Foundation wants to help them appreciate just how enhancing this new model might be - but judging by the fact that it has taken me 20 minutes of gentle chat and scribble with the lovely and highly intelligent duty manageress in this Lounge - it may not happen any day soon!

Virgin and BAA - you need to manage and control your "Virtual Estate" with the same care and concern as you do your "Real Estate"!