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Selling Your Wireless Traffic to Passers-By

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-don't-forget-to-ssh dept.

An anonymous reader submitted a bit about a company called Joltage who wants to make it so that home and business users can make a few bucks by selling their excess bandwidth to people who just happen to be in the neighborhood. Besides the obvious security issues, and the serious lack of coverage once you get out of metropolitan areas, this could be seriously cool.

4 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Not quite a repeat by GeorgeH · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sounds a lot like what the guys at Sputnik are doing.

    --
    Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
  2. Seems similar... by JordanH · · Score: 3, Informative
    To sputnik, previously covered on here on Slashdot.

    I'm not sure of what exactly are the differences between the two. Sputnik seems to have more information on their pages about the architecture, but they could be very similar, from what I'm reading.

    If they are similar, this is one industry that's already in need of a shakeout. I imagine the real value of something like this being in availability and different systems don't help that much.

  3. Terms of Service by sourcehunter · · Score: 3, Informative
    I skimmed the TOS and found some interesting notes.

    You may be asked from time to time to provide marketing support as a condition for your continued participation in the Joltage Network. Such marketing support may include posting postcards, signage, stickers etc. on your premises and including Joltage's logo on your marketing material.
    So, if I'm a business, and I have setup a Joltage system, I can be required to put their logo in my marketing propoganda if I want to remain a Joltage "service provider"? Yuck.
    --

    quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
  4. It's time to start thinking bigger by Crag · · Score: 3, Informative

    I saw a few comments at threshold 4 saying this would be against the Acceptable Use Policy of a lot of providers, and that it would be better to get dedicated bandwidth (a T1) to do this.

    Well, how about it? How much is a T1 these days? Could this pay for itself, or even compete with DSL?

    I'm used to seeing full T1s sell for around $1k a month. I would have to recover around $1000 to be breaking even. I'm in downtown Seattle, so I think if this idea took off I'd have a rich pool of potential drive-by customers, but I'd also have a lot of coffee house and bar customers. There are about a dozen bars and coffee houses within 2000 feet of my apartment.

    The Joltage site is a little sketchy about financial details, but their hourly rate is $2. They also say that the "hot spot" (me in this case) gets half of the revenue. That means I'd have to accumulate 1000 hours a month combined to recoup the $1000 a month I'd be paying for my T1. If 20 users consistantly used my net for 2.5 hours per business day (of which there are aprox 20 in a month), it would work. Is this realistic?

    Right now I don't think it is. All the customers who might be interested already have solutions in place. The only way this could take off would be if they signed up people who already have bandwidth they can give away and who won't suffer if noone uses them. There are a few internet caffes around here who might be interested since they already have net AND they already re-sell it to their existing customers. The overhead would be a little lower for them and it could attract more customers. This project looks tenuous at best.

    I wish them luck.