Posted by
Steve Smith on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Picture-of-the-Internet-tp7583065p7583074.html
>> In Berkeley ca 2005, if I felt sluggish (I mean my internet),
> I can imagine a more urban area being more problematic. I've heard that
> some ISPs include restrictions on wifi sharing in their terms of service
> "agreements":
>
>
http://w2.eff.org/Infrastructure/Wireless_cellular_radio/wireless_friendly_isp_list.htmlWhile the agreements tend to be a little vague and biased *against* the
consumer (not a surprise given who writes them?), there *is* some common
sense we use everywhere. We don't take an all-you-can-eat salad bar
plate and feed a family from it but we might give a child or a partner a
morsel from our plate without guilt. We don't help our neighbor tap
our water main so they can shut off their own service but we might water
an isolated corner of their lawn or a flowerbed that is close to our own
but hard to reach from their own infrastructure. We don't steal pencils
and pens from our workplace to avoid buying them for our children's
school or our own home desk but we don't panic when we leave work with
one in our pocket. We don't insure a car for a high-risk driver to use
without putting them on the list of drivers but we might let them borrow
our car now and again.
This seems like another form of tragedy around the commons?
So, how *do* legitimate Mesh Networks get created/propogated if access
to the backbone is controlled by angry trolls at the gates?
I am sure that in Berkeley there were any number (probably much less
than 50% of the households) who depended on the goodwill of folks like
myself to avoid obtaining their own service.
On the other hand, my experience with PacBell suggests these folks felt
that may have felt they had no good options. PacBell required that I
sign a 12 month agreement to get internet... even though I told them I
only planned to live there 11 months... they had no option so I took the
12 month deal. When it was time to leave, I tried to get them to waive
the $200 "early termination fee" when I was shutting down 20 days before
my 365... they weren't having it. So finally I told them I would keep
the service until the year was up and they said that as soon as they
detected that all my devices were disconnected from the service *they*
would terminate my service (unattended service?), which they did, and
then levied the $200 fee which I ignored which still plagues me
everytime I try to refinance my house! In the post subprime mortgage
world, it seems a smudge as faint and explainable as that can move you
from super-prime to questionable! Students who likely move through
apartments as frequently as on a semester basis are just SOL unless good
samaritans (scofflaws?) like myself provide an alternative?
- Steve
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