IP: SHARE BANDWIDTH, FREE-WIRELESS ADVOCATES SAY: Edupage, September 7, 2001

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Community-minded citizens in New York City and Seattle are
>advocating setting up shared wireless Internet networks in their
>metropolitan areas. Although ISPs are certain to object to this
>activity--AOL Time Warner's Road Runner service explicitly forbids
>retransmission--the benefits to the community are worth testing
>the legal limits of the idea, said Anthony Townsend, co-founder
>of the NYCwireless group. The idea is to let the public access
>broadband connections via a Wi-Fi wireless transmission. The
>signal would be powerful enough to cover a small portion of a
>busy street, or provide high-speed access to homes surrounding
>a small school, for example. Activists in Seattle have set up
>two nodes near bus stops so that residents with wireless-enabled
>laptops can log on. Matt Westervelt of SeattleWireless said the
>goal in each of these cities would be to set up a shared
>city-wide network so that everyone would be able to access
>high-speed Internet connections without paying ISP fees.
>(Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 September 2001)



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