Slashdot Mirror
Always-On Internet For Cheapskates?
chuck writes "I like my broadband Internet access because of its always-on nature, but my usage doesn't really justify paying $40-$50 each month for hundreds of kb/s when all I really do is read and write email sporadically, light web browsing and IM. Are there any options for cheapskates like me to pay less for lower bandwidth (modem speeds would be fine) but still have an always-on connection for cheaper than cable or DSL? I have a $5/mo ISP that I use when I'm out and about, and my 2.5G wireless phone can give me internet access on a shoestring (with free evenings and weekends) but neither of those has that always-on quality. Any ideas?"
In the UK, over the last couple of years, there's been a rise in the number of broadband packages that offer fairly high speeds but with low usage rates (1-3GB a month). Some can be had for as cheap as £14 (~$25). Sounds like just what you need. So emigrate.
Hey, not such a bad idea. Here in New York I've set up Wi-Fi enabled laptops for friends and just had them piggy back on an open network... Just about anywhere you go in New York you can pick up at least a couple open networks (I once saw 20 at once). A friend of mine actually put a Wi-Fi card in his desktop and canceled his cable modem, and now he just piggy-backs off someone in his building.
Better yet, move to someplace like Philly that is going to have free Wi-FI city wide soon.
BellSouth offers DSL Lite; a 256/128 dsl circuit for $24.95 per month. Perhaps your local DSL provider offers something similar.
Or, download NetStumbler and sniff out an open WAP in your neighborhood and leech bandwidth. There are about 5 I can reach from my house.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Find a neighbor who's got wireless and offer to pay half the cost. My landlord got wireless a few months ago. I was still on dialup at home at the time, but I had wireless in my laptop for hitting the hotspots. He told me to go ahead and use his connection, since he's paying for it anyway. (I did offer to cover half of the cost, but he simply repeated that he's paying for it anyway, so he didn't care.)
I am From Romania :( and we have 2 choises dial-up at 16.4kb/s at 8 euro/month or cable at 256kb/s 2Gb(9$), 4Gb(15$), 8Gb(20$), 16Gb(29$). And of course fiber (2Mb/s) at more than 1000$/month
Think like a hacker, act like a hacker, but never become a hacker !
Ask ISP's around if they still do ISDN. Granted, it's 128K, but since most everyone's broadband, the price should be cheap now. Plus, you don't need to light both B channels all the time. Keeping the D channel lighted at 9600 bps for small stuff will keep you online all the time anyway for monitoring (like POP or long, slow downloads), and for harder stuff (regular downloads, surfing, etc) you can light the B's up.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Did exactly this with Misterhouse and diald. I configured the reaction to the staircase motion sensor to be a ping to an off-network IP. Previously, I just configured diald to be "always connected" to my office VPN (an 800#). It took months before they nagged me about it, so then I moved to the motion sensor approach. It definitely stopped the nagging.
As an aside, you may be able to get free (or cheap) AOL/Yahoo!/MSN IM on your cellphone. I get all three unlimited for free on my Nextel. I only use the AOL piece and created a separate id just for the phone. ("g33kb0y" and "g33kb0ycell" for example)
Intelligent Life on Earth
Can anyone speak to using "Amateur Radio" equipment to do this? I think the only ongoing costs would be power -- up-front costs include equipment and licensing, but I think you could get there (modem speed always-on) for under $100 on a budget, and possibly closer to megabit for 1k USD. I also hear that a) you can get into big trouble if your unlicnsed, and b) can lose your license and/or get into bigger trouble if you abuse your licensed privileges. IIRC there are no-code packet license now, which means you don't *have* to learn morse code to pass. This also uses some already-established [public?] radio infrastructure, namely repeaters, if I've made any sense of the subject at all... IANAH (hammer). Am I way off here, folks?
Was it a bat I saw? Racecar. Stack cats. A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal--Panama!
I once saw 20 [networks] at once [in New York]
;)
My record for a single sitting on the 38th floor of the Hilton in midtown is **247** networks. Not all open, sure, but still...
Intelligent Life on Earth
My uncle anc cousins have an interesting setup. They pay their neighbors about $10 a month and their neighbors supply them with a wireless key. They bought a kick-ass directional antenna and pointed it at their neighbor's house. Its not technically piggybacking, buy I dont know what the IPS's polocy is on sharing internet.
I think your going about this the wrong way. While you might not NEED the speed of high speed Internet, you admit you want the convenience of always on service.
I would urge you to look in a different direction. Instead of dropping the HSI, (high speed Internet), I'd drop my analog telephone service and switch to a VoIP provider. Depending on the optional services and amount of long distance, you could save $40 or much more each month by using an unlimited VoIP package from Vonage, VoicePulse, AT&T, etc versus traditional telco rates. Since you also have a cellphone that apparently works at your home, there's really no downside to this scenario.
If you are dead set about nixing your HSI, your best option is to find an agreeable, nearby neighbor to share their HSI account. But if you do this, definately use wireless -- not copper -- to connect to his/her service. Differences in ground potential between houses can destroy equipment, cause a shock or even be a fire hazard.
You could use something like a Multitech RouteFinder RF500, or any other router that provides a serial port to use an external modem for ISP dial-up. This would give you an always-on dial-up connection. However, since a bare POTS line for your always-on Internet is around $22/mo, plus a bare-bones, unlimited dial-up ISP is another $10/mo, when you add in taxes and fees, you're maybe going to save $5 - 15 per month: not worth it in my view.
ISDN, at least in the USA, is probably not an attractive option, since most telco's charge per minute of use per B channel, plus the ISP's usually charge a higher rate for access. Where the telco does offer unlimited data service it's at a considerably higher rate than $50/mo. So you'll pay more for slower speed via ISDN.
I know several people who have "cut the cord" to the phone company and rely solely on VoIP over the Cable Internet and cellphone for voice calls. They save an average of $30/mo and are quite satisfied with the quality and reliability.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
It's possible/probable that Vonage doesn't have enough frequency band to support a modem.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Assuming you can find an ISP who'll charge you what ISDN is really worth these days (rather than pricing data access over a single 64k channel as if it were "broadband"), it's not a bad option. As I recall from the days when I was running my web server over an ISDN line, the line itself isn't horribly more expensive than POTS. Even if you don't get "always on" service from your ISP, it's darn close to "instant on" (at least compared to V.whatever handshaking over POTS). Plus you get a second phone line out of it (e.g. for a fax machine, second answering machine).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That's why you purchase a business grade account that does not have the AUP restricitons of the residential account. If necessary, form a corporation (takes two people, $50, and a trip to City Hall) and have your neighbors become members of your corp. You're no longer sharing internet access with a third party because you're all in the same corporation, thus, no AUP violation.
This is assuming you purchase the internet account in the name of the corp, not your own name, of course.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
At my old high school we probably had 50 people sharing their music collections (it was a boarding school). I hardly ever needed to open Napster (this was ~5 years ago), because someone had already downloaded whatever I was interested in. Of course, some people put passwords on their shared folders, but it wasn't anything pqwak couldn't take care of.
Here in New Zealand we have to modulate our own data transfer by beating drums down the phone line, and Telecom New Zealand still charges us a hefty surcharge for the privilege.
Seriously, acceptable quality dial-up Internet for $US10 sounds luxurious to me, while $US25 for 256K with a limit above 3GB sounds like science fiction.
Telecom New Zealand sucks arse.
If you're reading this, and you work for Telecom New Zealand, SHAME ON YOU.
DISCLAIMER: First off, know that I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever played one on or off of TV. This comment is not legal advice or legal analysis, despite any evidence to the contrary, and any reliance you take on it is evidence of your own stupidity, and you assume the risk inherent in so doing.
But something I've heard about from law school professors (don't ask what I was doing in a law school classroom, I'm not a lawyer, remember?) is that we have a doctrine of adverse possession and its related cousin, prescriptive easement. Adverse possession lets you take ownership of land if you've been trespassing on it for 20 years if you have used it as if you were the legitimate owner for all that time. Prescriptive easements don't require exclusivity or possession - you just have to use property for a long time and then you get to keep using it in the same way forever. Also, the statutory period is often lower for prescriptive easements, like 5 or 10 years.
Enter the digital age. If you use your neighbor's wireless for 5 years straight, you could convince a (very gullible) court to grant you an easement that ensures your neighbor never gets rid of his wireless connection or tries to lock you out of it. And that burden would probably run with his apartment or home, so no future tenant or owner could lock you out of his wireless or cancel his Internet connection.
Yes, the non-lawyer in me definitely thinks this is a good idea.
". . . its (sic) not really that unethical (although it is illegal) . . ."
Yes, it is quite illegal. Most states call it the "Theft of Cable" act, or more recently, "Theft of Information Services." In my state, it's a felony that can get you up to five years on the first offense.
But, more importantly, you are saying that theft is "not that unethical." Or, to put it another way, "theft is ethical." Okay, so when somebody steals your car you won't press charges because it's ethical?
What's that? Not the same thing? I disagree. First of all, both cases of theft are statutorially illegal. Second, you paid for your car (probably still are like most of us), so you should get to decide who uses it. The Cable Companies paid for the infrastructure. Don't they have the right to determine who can use it?
Or, another example? Rental cars. A big company loans you their car. They paid for the car, you can only use it within the limitations of the contract you sign as a renter.
So, while it may seem cheaper to steal cable . . .
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Sign up for a regular package you want, and call up and ask for a static ip address and a reverse address.
Most of the black lists out there that block spam based on "dynamic" ranges do so based on what IPs are allocated to dial-up ISPs and home style cable modems. I've not had any problems with speakeasy's being accounts of any type being blacklisted. Your mileage may vary. Even if you don't get a static IP from speakeasy, the lease times are very much staticish. I dont have speakeasy no more, but I had the same IP from them for like 18 months - even though it was "dynamic".