Appendix C. Community Wireless Networking

Along with the remarkable workflow productivity and enterprise benefits of wireless technology, 802.11 offers the dawn of a new frontier for wireless enthusiasts and free network proponents. Wireless user groups have sprung up everywhere and wireless networking has become a new hobby for countless millions of users. Nobody is quite sure why Wi-Fi has become all the rage, but if you visit a user group meeting in a city near you, it's clear that this technology has become a passion much like that experienced by ham radio operators in earlier generations. Many of these individuals have proposed creating open and free wireless networks in their communities.

Let's take a closer look at how the economics of wireless Internet access take shape. Generally, there are three camps: for pay, amenity, and utility.