[MLB-WIRELESS] Public internet access

[Rowan 2006]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006, Zik Saleeba wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm a newcomer to Melbourne Wireless and I know this topic has come up
> time and time again - how to legally provide internet access via
> Melbourne Wireless - but I'd like to dig up this topic once again.
> Since I'm only new here I hope I haven't repeated the mistakes of
> others before me. But here's what I'm thinking anyway:

Looks like we've been having parallel conversations with Gary about same
thing. :)

http://wireless.org.au/pipermail/melbwireless/2006-September/thread.html

See the "noncommercial WISP" thread I started.

I agree with others that providing unconditional internet access via MW
may be an impractical task - for both administrative and financial
reasons. I don't know how many paid members MW has but I would guess that
paying for a wholesale connection would be a significant chunk of the
yearly budget, which may mean that other projects may suffer due to lack
of funds.

However, that doesn't mean that someone with the necessary bw and a
suitable connection into MW cannot donate a portion of it. For example, I
have a business grade 256/1500 ADSL which allows me to have downstream
connections (aka reselling, except in this situation there would be no $$$
involved). I don't think that free-for-all access would be practical,
rather it would be better to consider it as adding supplementary
redundancy to member's existing internet connections.

Cheers.