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Speakeasy Introduces Broadband WiFi Sharing Plan
An anonymous reader writes "Today, speakeasy (the greatest ISP ever) sent out a letter from the CEO introducing their NetShare Wi-Fi plan. It lets you share your broadband with your neighbors, with Speakeasy handling the billing and splitting the fee 50/50. More ISPs should be like this!"
According to the article, this applies if you get either a T1 or IDSL. IDSL maxes out at 144kbps up/down. Thats not much of a connection to share in the first place. Getting a T1 for a residential place is not all that likely even if you do cut it down to 50/50.. still a lot to pay. If youre a business user, you might not want to share the connection for security reasons.
I've had their service since DirectTVDSL crashed. They are VERY Linux friendly - their terms of service are REALLY reasonable, for the most part "do what you want as long as it's legal." Did anyone notice they are one of the three repositories for rpmfind??
I'm a happy customer!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I asked the same question of them recently, and was sent this in reply:
http://www.speakeasy.net/pricing
They're not really splitting the cost. You, the neighborhood admin, can set whatever price you think your neighbors will bear.
"Who sets the NetShare customer pricing?
We put the power in your hands! As the Admin, you can select any retail price from $20 to $50, in $5 increments, and from $60 to $100 in $10 increments."
Your bill gets cut in half, they get new customers, they do all the billing, and you do all the local footwork and admin. Signing up people who would otherwise not have gone to DSL.
I run an open network for people passing by who might want to use the net for a while. I leave my network wide open, with DHCP and all, because when I travel, I apprecieate others who do the same.
However, I pay $100/mo for my dsl (split with housemates, we all value having a 1.5/768 connection), and I'm not paying that to give other people full-time premium dsl in their homes for free. This guy approached me and offered to pay in on our dsl bill, and I don't see our choice of media as having anything to do with the ethics of charging him.
I keep a pretty close eye on stats for our little net (linux hostap puts these in
I'll have to look into the NetShare thing, one the login stops 404ing, as giving him an email address and having him pay speakeasy directly may be a nicer option.
I hope to be able to continue to run my network open though.Whatever. I block outbound port 25, too. Does that also make it not open? Still seems pretty open to me, strangers can browse the web just fine... I was thinking of limiting it further, so strangers could get online, but could only make TCP connections to a whitelist of ports (ie 22). That way people can ssh out and check their mail, and if they're savy enough they can bring in a full net connection from outside. Now _that_ would be "not really open", though still open enough for a lot of wifi travelers I know.
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Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
I like Speakeasy. I was their customer for almost a year, but had to leave for SBC because they couldn't give me good service. That's not why I fault them.
The problems?
1. Hold times for customer service. 10-15 minutes was normal for me.
2. They sometimes didn't followup on open tickets. I'd call, get a ticket opened, and wait for days for them to call. Then, call back and ask about it, and hear "Gee, this ticket has been open a long time... sorry." No shit!
In general, they give good service, though it comes at a premium.
They've been advertising this WiFi thing on their webpage for about a month now.
The rest of that letter is more interesting. Here are some excerpts:
In addition, we also plan to support IPv6 [editor's note: !!!], multiple connections for bonding or redundancy, individual customer firewall options, improvement of peer-to-peer applications such as video conferencing and application sharing, and, eventually, relatively advanced applications such as IP multi-cast through the last mile. Of course, we will always place an emphasis on assuring the fundamental network reliability and performance our members require.
[snip]
Many of you have tried our new and much improved Web-based Email service. You may have noticed this service also includes Calendaring, Reminders (via cell phone, email) and much more. I am excited to announce today that we will soon add a service option to allow true shared calendaring for Business-Class members.
[snip]
Although VoIP (Voice over IP) has been, in our opinion, a bit over-hyped for the past few years, we believe that the technology and service has advanced to the point that it is now a viable alternative phone service for many people. Accordingly, we are exploring a Voice over IP solution that will allow Speakeasy customers to use their broadband connection to make local and long distance calls. More details to come as we complete Beta trials and determine cost and features.
Interesting, eh?
This isn't a REQUIREMENT to share your bandwidth-- Speakeasy has always allowed you to share your connection with whomever you wish. This is simply so you can opt for Speakeasy to handle the billing to those you share with (if you so choose). Its by no means a requirement, and if you are sharing to people you trust will keep up with their share of the payment, then there is most likely not a reason to use this program (unless the extra email adresses, web space and such make it worth it to you). Scam my ass, you just misread their intentions.
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