Interesting piece on Sputnik which is trying to create an ad hoc commercial wireless network through “affiliates” who make their broadband connections available to Sputnik’s fee-paying members (presumably receiving some kick-back from Sputnik when they do so).
What isn’t mentioned in the article above is that to use Sputnik you have to dedicate a machine completely to acting as a server and you have to burn a CD-R with the software for the machine to boot from. My guess is that this will limit the user base to eager early adopters. If it were a Windows/Mac app that people could install and run in the background, then it might really take off…
Also not mentioned is what happens if DSL providers find large amounts of their bandwidth is being used by a bunch of people who are not only not paying the ISP any additional money but are paying some third party company. Sputnik itself asserts “Sputnik offers many benefits to ISPs” (without enumerating them) and they add, “Sputnik does not support any activities that violate an ISP’s acceptable usage policy”.
It remains to be seen whether they can resolve the underlying problems – but it is still good to see inventive people trying to create new solutions to the “last mile” problem!
P.S. Boingo Wireless is also offering wireless roaming, but with a more conventional business model.
