The Legal Issues

The primary challenge to widespread free network proliferation has been the legal issues involved in sharing your Internet access. Giving free access to the world may be a violation of the Terms of Service (ToS) from your Internet Service Provider. This makes sense. After all, if you took your cable TV cord, used a splitter, and ran a line to your neighbor's television, we would all agree that sharing your cable TV is a clear violation of the law. Isn't a replacement of the physical cable with a wireless transport still doing the same thing for wireless Internet access? Well, this is where things get tricky.

Up until now, many ISPs have offered bandwidth pricing models that include “all-you-can-eat” plans. In other words—you pay a certain amount each month and you get unlimited access. So, if I set up a wireless network for my kids to use, am I violating the ToS? If I use the wireless network to use my laptop from the park across the street, am I violating the ToS? As you can see, the issues are complicated and a number of gray areas exist.

In some cases, providers have actually sent letters to individuals warning them to discontinue their wireless networks. In other cases, some providers encourage and embrace this kind of behavior. These providers often sell service based on bandwidth (for X dollars per month, you get 128 k, for Y dollars per month, you get 384 k), so they believe that increasing utilization will encourage customers to pay for a higher bandwidth category. A list of Wi-Fi friendly ISPs is maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/Infra/Wireless_cellular_radio/wireless_friendly_isp_list.html.