Re: [Sheflug] Wireless Internet Workshop 9/10th November

[James Wallbank <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Alex, (and everyone else)

Bill's asked me to step into the fray over Consume.Net legality 
because he's away on holiday for a couple of weeks and won't be 
available for further comment for a while.

Essentially, the subject is under discussion with the licensing 
authority - James Stevens, the prime mover of Consume Net has been to 
in-depth meetings with them, and they haven't threatened to prosecute 
yet!

The principal area of discussion now is, of course, what the hell 
happens if Telco's lose control of the local loop to a wireless 
networked community who pay nothing except for their own wireless 
infrastructure, but are required to make their service freely 
available to other wireless users?

As you can imagine, there is significant behind-the scenes lobbying 
going on right now. Fortunately for the Telco's, the 2.4gHz 802.11b 
plan has a flaw - if the consume.net model (essentially, a private, 
but free-to-join network club) becomes popular, the bandwidth will 
become saturated and it will grind to a halt. Also, of course, 
Bluetooth interferes with that bandwidth and will knock holes in the 
coverage.

There is another, more satisfactory bandwidth which is available and 
which consume.net (or a related model) could use for a 
no-money-changes-hands network currently under discussion. Now the 
whole thing looks like a David-and-Goliath situation: the Telco's vs. 
a handfull of consume.net hackers. However, there is a significant, 
wealthy lobbyist who has weighed in with the 802.11 brigade: the 
multi-multi-millionairre George Soros. Soros has decided to dedicate 
his millions (remember, he was the currency speculator who knocked 
the pound out of the exchange rate mechanism) to getting Eastern 
Europe on the net and boosting their economies (what a nice man). He 
realises that a workable no-wires, community pushed network would be 
dirt-cheap to set up, and  nobody would have to deal with 
pre-cambrian eastern-european telco infrastructures, bureaucracies 
and insider deals. Brilliant!

Whether his lobbying power will be sufficient to open up a crack in 
the Telco's stranglehold on the local loop is debatable, but it'll be 
interesting to watch. Meanwhile, the more feasible the theory of 
communicating for free is demonstrated to be, the more pressure it 
puts on the Telco's to bring prices down. Line-of-sight laser, anyone?

That's what the wireless workshops are really about - we can prove 
that the thing is technically feasible and doesn't cost anyone else 
except the Telco's. The question of whether the Telco's should have 
an inalienable right to tax digital communication by whatever means 
then comes into sharp focus.

Hope this helps!

James
=====

>On Friday 19 October 2001 5:57 pm, you wrote:
>>  > > Unless someone proves otherwise, I believe these things to be illegal
>>  > > unfortunately (Telecommunications Acts; Regulated ISPs) - beware ;o
>>
>>  Use of the IEEE 802.11b standard in the 2.4GHz spectrum band is totally
>>  legal in the UK as long as you are not charging for its use.
>
>No, that's not the case. It is legal *for private use*. You are *not* allowed
>to provide internet service over it in any public fashion whatsoever. "Public
>Service" being defined roughly as the same person owning both ends of a link.
>A public link is okay, so long as it is peer-to-peer: that is not what is
>being described here.
>
>There is one reason why 3g licences cost so much: they are the wireless local
>loop. If you think BT et al. are going to let people subvert that with
>802.11b equpiment, I think you're mistaken - they've paid too much money for
>that :(
>
>Cheers,
>					Alex.
>___________________________________________________________________
>
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>
>   GNU the choice of a complete generation.

-- 
who: James Wallbank
org: Redundant Technology Initiative
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