Speakeasy not only encourages connection sharing ... It promotes it Duffy Hayes, CED
While the cable industry wrestles with the concept of "neighborhood" sharing of broadband Internet connections via wireless access points, at least one provider on the DSL side is actively promoting the practice. In a move unique to any broadband provider, regardless of baseline technology, national independent provider Speakeasy announced today that it has begun actively promoting shared wireless networking among its broadband customers. In a release, the DSL provider said while other broadband providers are either prohibiting wireless networking entirely or adding extra fees for splitting the connection wirelessly, Speakeasy is encouraging its customers to extend their connection "to additional computers in their homes or even to computers in neighboring homes." The Speakeasy promotion goes beyond simple encouragement, however. Through the end of the year, new customers can receive a free 11 Mbps 802.11b wireless access point if they sign up for the company's Home Office, SysAdmin or Gamer DSL packages. Business customers who sign up for either T-1 or SDSL service get a more robust 72 Mbps 802.11a access point with the service. By hooking up the access point to the DSL modem or router, the connection can support up to 64 simultaneous users. Today, cable service providers are struggling to get a handle on connection sharing, wireless splitting and unfettered access. Some MSOs have informed a small base of their broadband customers that sharing their cable modem connection among their neighbors infringes on the fair use policies written in to customer contracts for the high-speed service. In some cases, operators have even assigned reactive "sniffer" teams to follow up on users who promote that they are providing "free" Internet connections through Wi-Fi technology. The budding practice has prompted a discussion among some cable operators about the potential of consumption-based billing for cable modem services versus traditional flat-rate fees. One, Alaska-based GCI Communications, is already testing the virtues of such a service. -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
