gabriel rosenkoetter on Wed, 24 Apr 2002 17:00:13 -0400


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Re: [PLUG] PLUG Wireless/ Co-op?


On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 04:09:04PM -0400, Noah silva wrote:
> Most ISPs say that you can't transport your internet connection to any
> other buildings.  I suppose the 802.11b may not really be to another
> building.  I also have speakeasy, also because their terms of service
> are... better than most other places.  I don't know how happy they'd be if
> they found out I was sharing the connection with my 500 closest
> friends.

Hrm. I was going to find a TAC document (which you could read, but I
guess most of PLUG couldn't) that talked about wireless e'net, as
I'm pretty sure I've read one, but support.speakeasy.net seems to be
rather broken right now. Oh well.

Point is, I'm pretty sure it's been made clear that they're not too
concerned about this. (They've got public 802.11B hubs around
Seattle that are on their network, to the best of my knowledge.)

They, being sane, realize that they're selling the bandwidth, which
is not a nebulous concept.

> They think one IP = one computer, and you should have to pay per
> computer.

This is definitely not the case with Speakeasy. (Their "setup
instructions" sort of presume that, but that's more because anybody
who's doing NAT doesn't need help doing it. Or, to put it more
appropriately, if you think it's your ISP's responsibility to help
you NAT, you shouldn't be doing it.) I'd go dig up a link about
that on the TAC, but it's no less broken now.

> It really reminds me of the cable companies trying to charge you
> per TV, until they got smacked down... didn't they learn the
> first time?

Of course they did. They learned they can do this stuff and make
extra money till someone slaps them on the wrist. Back to
corporation game tactics. Stop being such an idealist. :^>

> The other thing I don't get is why they are worried in the first
> place.  I can EASILY take up all the bandwidth with one computer,
> or I might have four connected, and barely use it at all.

It's not your usage they're worried about, it's making more money
off you any way they can.

These folks are NOT just selling bandwidth. They're verging on the
licensing discussion.

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

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