In the US, Time Warner is starting to warn its users against sharing their bandwidth using wireless LANs. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, who brought this to my attention says, “I hope that 802.11a mesh-networks without any connection to an ISP (other than at a major network interchange like MAE West) take off soon, and put these fools out of commission.” But I can see the ISPs’ point – Every person who shares someone else’s connection free of charge is one fewer paying customer.
Now if wireless LAN users were charged by those that they shared from and some of that charge was funnelled back to the ISP providing the “backbone” – that might be sustainable. I suspect Sputnik and Boingo may employ this model.
The arguments arising are very similar in nature to those over sharing intellectual property. People are saying “I paid for this bandwidth I should be able to give it away to anyone I like”. But it’s important to realise that ISPs need to make money somehow or there won’t be any bandwidth around to share…
