Slashdot Mirror
Caveats In Reselling DSL Bandwidth To Neighbors?
chrisleetn writes "I'm contemplating getting Slashdot (Speakeasy) 6Mbps broadband or something similar and offering wireless internet access to my neighborhood. Speakeasy even has a plan to allow this. What should I be aware of as far as legal/business/regulatory implications? I know I need to restrict obvious illegal stuff and probably p2p to be safe, but is the local cable modem company going to come after me for competing with them? Has anyone done this who can offer some insight?"
Providing it free as a service probably wouldn't be too difficult. But would it make sense to go through all the hassle for the few bucks you can make?
- To err is human; but to really screw up, you need a computer
At 768 up you would need some way to cap their upload. Otherwise you'd risk a neighbor ruining it for everybody.
You might want to set up something like NoCatAuth. NoCatAuth redirects users to a login page, implementing a captive portal system. This is important if you're selling the service because you want to be able to grant and deny access, and 802.11[A-Za-z] is otherwise full of holes.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
In the broadest sense, once people start paying money, no matter how small, the relationship changes.
When connectivity on Sunday at 7am goes down, people will look at where they can get help. If they have a door to knock on, then woe betide you.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
i can't think of a problem. the 802.11b/g spectrum is unlicensed. you can use it for whatever reason you wish. if your kick-ass provider lets you do this, then they won't complain.
as another poster said, is it really worth the trouble when it comes to billing?
also keep in mind that using wireless opens up their computer to the world. make sure folks know this before you let them join your network.
This is one of those cases where some simple common sense comes into play.
Alright, so you not going to be an illicit reseller, but an authorized body capable of forming a legal binding agreements with your customers.
ISP's do this all the time... they simple resell bandwidth they have purchased from their providers.
Basically, write out what services you will provide and clearly define what you won't allow. It needs to be clearly written and agreed upon by your clients.
After that, you simply need to track ip addresses (assumming DHCP will be in iuse), keep mail logs (if you provide smtp/pop service) and generally ensure that you can track illicit activity back to the source if requested to do so by a court order.
It's simply a matter of accountability and this is something you can easily do given it is a service you can provide.
Anything else is just extra, but it would probably be a good idea to track bandwidth usage.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
What you do with your bandwidth, as long as it doesn't violate terms of service, is your business, not that of your local cable company.
However, would your neighbors be willing to pay?
In my neighborhood, I can count no less than 9 unprotected networks. Most of them are all on the default linksys channel of 6 with the default SSID of "linksys". That can sometimes make them difficult to use since they tend to interfere. Some of them are configured well enough to be usable but are still not protected.
I've found that in the rare events that my internet connection goes down, I've been able to easily just use a neighbor's. I'd feel worse about doing it if it weren't for the fact that it's so common, but it's very common.
A friend and I drove around town one night with a laptop and a wireless 802.11g card and we kept finding Netgear and Linksys routers all night.
Most of them had the default passwords. It's very scary, really.
The scary ones are the ones who know enough to make serious changes to their configuration, but still don't have the sense to change their passwords.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Well, I certainly wouldn't sign up for your plan to share a 6 Mb connection with others.
But for those that do, what are you going to do to guarantee them that one of your neighbours isn't going to hog all of the bandwidth?
I know just in my house (also a 6 Mb connection), if I'm downloading something through Bit Torrent, it really slows down any internet stuff on the other computers, and if another computer here downloads a file or checks email, it makes games on mine stutter.
Are you going to give them bandwidth caps? And will those go down everytime you get a new customer?
If you go through Speakeasy, they set it up so that the people you sell it to are their customers, and not yours. The deal is that the more you sell, the less you pay. It's a good deal.
Be VERY careful. If you help one neighbour even once with a connectivity issue, chances are your door will never be silent again. This is not a joke. Trust me, you will be sat in front of other people's computers more than you are your own. Be firm from the outset. I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than being dragged from house to house to put the WEP key back in, only to have some luser remove it again.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Charging lets you assign value to your service, and assigning value is a key way to keep customers in line while covering your nut.
In terms of the cable modem companies "coming after you," you need only worry about legal competition -- no franchise agreements come to mind that completely lock out all broadband competition. It's worth noting, however, that Verizon has backed legislation in Pennsylvania to prevent municipalities from setting up free broadband services -- a bad step in the direction of market control.
If you *are* going to charge, then you've got some additional costs to consider:
Good luck!
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
Thats why they'd be pissed, at the very least they would cut off your service.
I think you missed the point. They can't cut his service, because they aren't providing it. What he means is that the CABLE companies might come after him because he is reselling the bandwidth he is getting from his DSL provider.
One reason they might do this is because they would be afraid that he might set some kind of example that their cable customers might expect they could get away with. After the cable company THEN has their own customers doing this, they are forced with the decision of either allowing it themselves, or cutting off their customers. That would be sending business to the competition.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
The FUCKING ARTICLE SUMMARY says SPEAKEASY ALLOWS THEIR CUSTOMERS TO SHARE THEIR CONNECTION.
The article isn't even about the cable modem company, its about DSL (the submitter was wondering if the Cable Co. would come after him for competing with them, which makes you and the grandparent twice the idiot)
- You're now earning income. You at least have to tack this onto your normal income tax to be legal. If you're making enough money, maybe you also have to get a business license. - If you do have to get a business license, you have to deal with zoning laws. If this is a small business being run out of your home, you can't meet with clients at your home, at least in some states. There's a good chance you don't care about either of those, as maybe you're not going to pay taxes or file for a business license, etc, but you asked, so it's something to consider
This should answer your questions. It's all good.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I have had broadband over cable for close to 5 years now. From the beginning, my uploads have been capped at around 48KBps (384Kbps). In this period, the technology has changed; prices of almost everything in this field have come down drastically; there's a massive bandwidth glut (with oodles of dark fiber lying around), and yet my upload speed is still capped. My question is: why?
OK, one answer could be: ISPs have to pay to send traffic to other ISPs. But that begs the question: why can't I get fullspeed (10Mbps) to my neighbor, if we are both on the same ISP? I can understand this peering argument to have merit when you're crossing ISP borders, but why doesn't the ISP let me get the full benefit of the technology to people in the same subnet?
My cynical guess is that this prevents file-sharing, the bogeyman of the entertainment industry. Since cable ISPs are beholden to (if not owned by) this industry, they are deliberately keeping the UL rates low.
Any thoughts?
I am doing this exact thing, except I'm in Sweden. I do not block things like P2P but I do use keyword based filtering through a proxy if the client requests this (usually if it's family computer where they want to keep the kids from visiting Goatse.cx,
Anyway, I'm no legal expert but I would think it'd help to keep the logs from Squid so you can account for who visited what and when. That way, you can always identify the person responsible if it ever comes to that.
I would not worry about your local ISP coming after you for stealing some of their potential customers as long as _your_ deal with _your_ ISP says that you can share your connection with others.
Oh, one more thing... You might want to looking into putting a contract together for your customers / friends who'll be using your line. You could basically ensure that _they_ are infact resposible for what they're doing on your xDSL.
At least here in Australia if you provide communication services which cross a property boundary then you have to be a licensed telecommunications carrier.
I believe that in NZ this is not a difficult thing to do (about as hard as applying for a passport) but the Australian Government is not fond of the idea of administring millions of telecommunication carriers, and has made the process much more difficult.
I think if you dig deeper in your juristiction you will find that similar rules apply. Remember all the regulations which apply to carriers: having to provide wiretap facilities, etc. Legally, this could be quite messy
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Do NOT sell access to a Slashdot subscriber.
Speakeasy even has a plan to allow this.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
1. You don't have to worry about the cable company. The cable company will only get pissed if the local government tries to provide broadband, because it would be unfair competition.
2. Triple check that the AUP for your DSL allows you to share and resell the service. Then check again.
3. If you are reselling, you will probably have to charge for sales tax, check your local tax authority.
4. There are probably FCC rules about the equipment that you can use and the maximum power that it can irradiate. Of course, if you are using turnkey COTS equipment, the odds are that it is FCC legit.
5. Check your neighbors and see what is the interest in this kind of service. If there is too little interest then you are setting yourself for failure, since your location is fixed and there is only so far you can reach.
6. Write your own AUP and make sure the CYA provisions are in bold, plain english a second grader can understand. Then take the AUP to a lawyer to read and see if he can poke holes thru it.
7. Be prepared for the technical support burden, even if most of your customers are geeks.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
The minute you block anything, you are setting youself up. At that point you are no longer a carrier, you are a content provider.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Because the provider says it is. When the provider says you can't then it's illegal to share the bandwidth.
When I tell you to take money from my wallet, it's not stealing; without permission you go to jail.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Go over their house and ask them nicely to stop downloading all that porn during the day.
And get subpoenaed in the divorce proceeding.
And/or get sued for invasion of privacy.
And/or get your car keyed.
And/or get your house burned down.
Why any sane person would want to do this is beyond me. I don't want my neighbors knowing what I do online, nor do I want to know what they do. There's way too much exposure here from a legal and liability point of view to be worth it to anyone, IMHO. The sentiment is admirable, but naive.
The odds are that someone on the 'customer' end of this arrangement is going to be sharing/downloading questionable content at some point after the arrangement is made. The way I see it, one of two things is likely to happen at that point:
1) The "provider" party will notice the traffic somehow, and take steps to prevent it. No matter how this is done, it's likely to ruffle some feathers, if not cause an all out neighbor war. Remember, you have to live next to these people.
2) The "provider" party will not notice the traffic, and $randomlargecompanywithexpensivelawyers will sue them. The MPAA/RIAA/Thought police/etc won't make the effort to determine if it's actually the "provider" user or the "customer" user in this arrangement that is infringing on their copyrights/whatever, their SOP is to sue the user who has paid the ISP for the access. The fact that you've essentially become an ISP will more than likely come out in the proceedings if a lawsuit goes forward, but by that time they've already bankrupted you with legal fees and taken your house.
It's just not worth it.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
It's absolutely amazing how many people don't RTFA or research anything, making statements like "Check your AUP" and things like that. For those people, I say: he is talking about a specific ISP (Speakeasy) that specifically PERMITS sharing, and even has a program set up (NetShare) to handle billing and such for you. Under this particular program, Speakeasy handles all the billing for you, and even gives you an additional IP address to provide to your "customer".
To answer the question, here are some pointers from somebody who is actually doing Speakeasy NetShare.
You do not need to worry (from a layman's viewpoint, IANAL, so check with your family attorney if you are worried) about filtering access. In fact, if you read the fine print of Speakeasy's documentation, you are not really permitted to do so. I was told specifically by a Speakeasy rep NOT to do this, even though I had the ability to.
Since Speakeasy will provide you with an IP address specifically for that customer, it will be easy (should fit hit the shan) to segregate your traffic from theirs. Speakeasy will be billing them seperately, so they will have their address and contact information should the RIAA/MPAA/LE come around. From a legal perspective (again, IANAL), you are no different than your local phone company.. you are only providing a conduit, passively, between the ISP (Speakeasy) and that ISP's customers (your neighbor using NetShare).
Over here, I have three specific ways of getting access. You can be plugged in to my personal LAN (which, BTW, is hardline). You can be accessing a free and open node (which runs NoCat), which is highly filtered and proxied. Or, you can be on the WPAd side of the house, which is the resale network.
Don't hesitate to participate in NetShare. It's an awesome way of reducing your monthly bill AND helping your less tech-savvy neighbors to get off AOL. Both are very worthy causes.
If you are in the united states, you should be extremely careful not to put yourself in the position of judging the legality of what your neighbors are doing. I have operated several open Internet systems, and the lawyers have specifically instructed me not to filter stuff preemptively, becuase this would vastly increasy my liability for anything I did happen to let through.
It does seem to be okay to do things like rate-limit people, or traffic shape so as to prevent one person from DoSing another, and probably to block forged IP addresses (if your ISP doesn't do that already).
However, I think you're in for a world of pain with the RIAA if you assume responsibility for making sure your neighbors don't violate copyright. Sure, you might be able to block P2P traffic, but who knows what other things they'll go after people for in the future. Maybe your neighbor will put up a web page on how to de-copy-protect CDs, and the RIAA will decide this caused them $500,000,000 of damage. Do you really want to be responsible for that?
Do some google searches for "prodigy case". And definitely don't try to institute any kind of blocking without first consulting a lawyer.
"I need to restrict obvious illegal stuff and probably p2p to be safe"
I would cap their bandwidth but don't bother trying to stop them from using p2p. Their own computer is the loser here and as long as you cap their bandwith you wont have to worry about the traffic causing you or other neighbors problems.
Just a thought.
Unless your reselling violated state, federal, or local law, or violated an exclusive franchise agreement another company had, you should be OK. In theory.
The only direct complaint your cable company might have is if you are laying wire in a way that interferes with their franchise agreement. For example, if you lay coax cable between you and your neighbors's house, particularly if it crosses a cable-company easement, it could be a problem.
If you are doing it wireless using unregulated spectrum, the only way they could shut you down is to get the city to go after you for violating domestic-business laws. This is particularly true if you advertise your business.
Another tack they might try is to get with the RIAA or MPAA and harrass you for copyright infringement every time your neighbors download a song illegally. After you get swamped with enough subpeonas, you may say "this isn't worth the hassle."
PS: Don't forget to comply with IRS rules on business and self-employment taxes.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Assuming the poster lives within the United States, there are no special legal requirements in most cases. Simply declare the income on your tax return, and expect to owe the government some money come April (just like you're SUPPOSED to do when you sell stuff on eBay, or hold a yard sale, etc.).
The caveat here is *you* are the business - which means if someone wants to sue "the provider", they would be suing YOU, and anything you own is fair game in said lawsuit.
/~mikeg
A few years ago an apartment resident (iirc) did something similar. I don't remember the details, just that he shared some service with his neighbors.
His landlord came down on him hard. A local company had an exclusive contract on providing that service and they demanded that the apartment complex deal with it. IIRC he was threatened with eviction unless he dropped the service. The story made the "legal issues" segment of the local news broadcast, and the lawyer told him he didn't have any options. He may have even been forced to drop his personal service even if he didn't share it with neighbors.
I'm showing my age here but I remember when it took a federal law to invalidate absolute restrictions on small satellite dishes. Exclusive arrangements on cable tv service were common and widely enforced.
The law changed the environment, but you should still check your particulars. E.g., I can easily imagine an apartment or condo complex banning wireless stations because 1) they wish to minimize interference between neighboring units and 2) they wish to retain the option of providing wireless service throughout the complex as a benefit of renting there. That's less likely with detached housing HOAs, but not impossible.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"I fixed another friend of a friends' kids PS2, and he (a plumber) came over and helped me replace a hot water heater."
Why do you heat your hot water?
The main reason I say don't do it is because the hassle of collecting money from people is just not worth it. When you set it up, you'll need to set a fee schedule. You'll have people trying to debate with you that "you are making money at their expense", or that they don't think the service is worth it..even if they have already used a month worth of service already. Or someone that just doesn't feel like paying you that month. The time you spend chasing people to pay money can become very onerous. Think of this in addition to getting roped into doing tech support (aka "Why should I pay for something which doesn't work"...even if the doesn't work part is because their computer doesn't work or is not set up right or they mucked with thier computer). For these reasons, I would not do it. It isn't worth it. I resold/shared a internet connection in a house when I was in College - it was a nightmare and a termendous time sink.
and it has value in the business world. Don't rule out giving away the access for free... you never know what you might get in return (and try not to expect too much... some people are leeches by nature).
An example from my own experience. My "day job" is as an emergency physician... and that's what pays the bills. However, computers have been a life-long interest of mine, and I am fairly adept with them. It's a great hobby.
As a side benefit, my hobby gives me something to trade... my nurses and ancillary personnel are forever bringing me broken/virus-ridden computers that I fix for them for nothing. (sometimes it's as simple as dropping in a knoppix CD and running a virus scan). You get unexpected bennies for doing such things... I've received cookies, gift certificates, other food, computer hardware, etc, etc... all for doing something that I enjoy anyway.
This not only works for my staff, but also for business associates ( for instance, drug reps who I've helped out seem to bring me samples more often, which is very helpful for my indigent patients). I've set up networks and wireless hotspots for other physicians, and I'm also the unofficial IT go-to guy for them. Keeping the medical staff happy takes us back to "good will," and has a direct effect on my job security (if the CEO of the hospital decides to replace the ER group, which includes me, a hue-and-cry from the other physicians can save my job).
It's all about making yourself valuable to other people... it creates "good will," which can pay off in all sorts of unexpected ways. Don't go into it expecting a big return, because people can often sense false altruism... but never underestimate what that good will can do.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The University of Texas at Dallas tried to ban WAPs in their non-dormitory housing. They caved when their lawyers told them the FCC would come down on THEM.
Basically, a contract that attempts to regulate what is the FCC's exclusive jurisdiction is probably unenforceable.
Here's what a greedy ISP CAN do:
If an wire-based ISP has a sweetheart deal with an apartment building and they want to lock out WAPs, they can jam those frequencies. It's deregulated and AFAIK there's nothing that can stop them as long as they keep the power level down.
Related Slashdot stories:
University Bans Wireless Access Points Sept. 09, 2004
UTD Lifts Ban On WiFi Equipment Sept. 18, 2004
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It is 100% free, he sets the price, Speakeasy bills the neighbors. Speakeasy gets more subscribers for the same bandwidth, the primary subscriber gets money off his bill. That's all there is to this. The person essentially becomes a PoP for the ISP at this point.
"Perl 6 gives you the big knob" -- Larry Wall
To create a usable secure service is going to cost you at least $5k. Do the math. How long will it take at market access rates for you to make that back with the number of subscribers you think you'll get in the best case. After you do that you will change your mind in a heartbeat. If that doesn't scare you, wait until one of your customers sues you for something and you find out none of your various insurance policies cover it. Or if you're even hardened enough to get past that. Do a bit more math and figure out how many concurent users an aDSL line will handle. Refer to the result of your first math forey (see above) then if you are still not scared then you are stupid. In that case, by all means go for it!
Not to spam for speakeasy, but I had to counter Anon Coward with at least a semi-non-anon accounting of their service. I've had speakeasy for a couple of years now, and I'm very happy with their tech skills and customer service. In this area (Colorado), they apparently have to go through Covad for installations, and the only problem I've ever had was with the Covad people when Qwest kept not updating my new address in the vendor database. Covad refused to complete the circuit. Speakeasy's people went out of their way to help me get things resolved. Covad and Qwest's people suck.
Rule No 1: They won't cause you any trouble if they don't get caught.
Give them a good lesson in anonymity and privacy. Give them all necessary software (VPN, encrypted messengers, PGP plugins for e-mail, software for anonymous remailers, disk encryption software, PGP-phone, FreeNet, PeerGuardian, firewalls, some steganography tools, etc., etc.). Explain that THEY are watching. Suggest caution.
Rule No 2: If there is no evidence, noone can cause you any troubles.
Either give users optional dynamic IPs or install an anonymizer proxy. Don't keep logs or delete them after a few hours automatically.
Rule No 3: Honesty is the best policy.
Be upfront with your customers. Explain that when MPAA comes with a court order, you would need to cooperate. Explain that when FBI comes (even without a court order), you would need to cooperate. State in your terms of use very clearly that you are not monitoring the use of the connection and are in no way responsible for it, it's the sole responsibility of the user.
Hope this helps.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I'll counter this with my experience. I replaced my Comcast cable modem with Speakeasy DSL (via Covad) a few years ago, and it's been wonderful. I've only had two outages in all that time, and only one of those was long enough for me to get internet withdrawal symptoms. They even give me advance notice of maintenance-related outages via e-mail. The few times I've contacted customer service the reps were knowledgeable and helpful. And they police their network-- they test my mailserver every month or so to make sure it's not an open relay, and when I report suspicious activity in my logs from an IP they own, it's taken care of in less than 24 hours.
~Philly