[MLB-WIRELESS] Your AUP, Internet Sharing and FON

[Dan Flett]

Hi all,

Has anyone read the fine print in their AUP lately?

I read the Bigpond AUP just now.

http://www.bigpond.com/internet-plans/broadband/adsl/acceptableuse/

The ADSL and Cable AUPs are identical.  They both contain Clause 6 which
applies only to Satellite Plans.  Clause 6 forbids the connection of another
network to the Satellite service.  To me, this implies that Bigpond don't
care if you connect another network, of any type, to your Cable or ADSL
service.

Does anyone agree with this interpretation?  What about other ISPs?

The big news in the wide world of WiFi Blogging is FON.  It is a Spain-based
company that has just received a large amount of funding from Google.  It
aims to make money through a grassroots network of WRT54G routers flashed
with the FON firmware.  The idea is that people buy a router flashed with
FON's firmware that they connect to their internet connection.  The router
shares the FON member's Internet feed over a mesh network.  Being a FON
member allows you to use other FON member's Internet feeds.  If you don't
share your own Internet feed, you can still use other FON-shared Internet
feeds for a fee.

It's still up in the air as to whether or not such a concept can work.  In
Europe people are generally open to the idea, in the US people are more
sceptical.  FON's success depends on getting enough ISPs to agree to allow
their users to share their service.  FON hopes to sweeten the deal by
revenue-sharing with ISPs.

A good write-up on FON is here:

http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006285.html#more

More info on FON here:

http://en.fon.com/help/faq.php

Many of the critics are unhappy with FON because of the general barrage of
hype, because of it calling itself a "grassroots" network when it really is
a for-profit company, and because so far it has ignored the GPL and not
released the source code for it's firmware (based on DD-WRT).

I'm now wondering how long it will be before FON makes an attempt at
launching in Australia.  Like the idea or not, I believe that FON will
attempt a launch here sooner or later.  If my interpretation is correct, and
Bigpond and does allow public sharing of it's Internet service, the only
possible hurdle for something like FON is regulatory.  

Thoughts, people?

Cheers,

Dan

-------------
View my blog:
http://freenetjazz.blogspot.com