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Time Warner Customers Get Free Wi-Fi Hotspots
Hotspots writes with a link to a BusinessWeek article discussing a new service that Time Warner Cable is offering to its customers. Flying in the face of most business decisions about Wi-Fi availability, Time Cable customers will soon be able to turn their connections into public wireless hotspots. This privilege comes as Time Warner inks a deal with the Spanish startup Fon, which is already operating a similar deal with ISPs in Europe. "For Time Warner Cable, which has 6.6 million broadband subscribers, the move could help protect the company from an exodus as free or cheap municipal wireless becomes more readily available. Fon was founded in Spain in 2005 on the premise that people shouldn't have to pay twice -- once at home, then again in a coffee shop -- for Internet access. At first, the company offered software that let members, called Foneros, turn Wi-Fi routers into shared access points, but it took hours to get up and running."
What about yesterday's news that "Open WAP = Probable Cause?"?
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http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/23/1
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Second, no-one can sue you if they can't prove you were downloading the movie... if you've got a public WiFi, it could've been anyone, right?
Agile Artisans
Two reasons. One, you get free access to all other Fon wireless APs around the world. Two, you can instead opt to receive part of the revenue your hotspot generates and forego the free access elsewhere.
That's the theory. In practice, I don't see hotspots in any locations I might want to get access from (because they're nearly all residential and I use wifi hotspots on business) and, for the same reason, I can't see a residential hotspot generating much revenue.
La Fonera routers are great: They sent me mine for free, and then I reflashed it with DD-WRT. It's a real piece of crap, but I can't complain about getting a free router :-)
http://www.speakeasy.net/ has allowed this for a long time. Their terms of use actually encourage sharing, and long before FON showed up, Speakeasy facilitated such sharing by finding ways for customers to earn revenue for it. One of the few surviving independent ISPs out there, I think Speakeasy deserves a lot of kudos for their policies. Of course, now that they are Best Buy we'll see how long it all lasts.
FON is interesting for it's dual network access point. I'm running one right now (in Austria) and it does a fine job. It does seem to suffer a bit when both public and private networks are in use, though. It also "phones home" for regular updates that are outside my control. A few weeks ago one such update killed our ability to pick up Google Mail via SSL/POP. The fixed the bug within a couple weeks, but it is still odd to be running my network with an access point so totally out of my control.
I pay Time Warner for bandwidth. Then I use Fonera's software so that I can give my bandwidth away to others. They pay Fonera a couple bucks for a day of access, and Fonera splits this price with Time Warner.
Anything I'm missing here?
My understanding is something like this: Aliens pay Fonera $X per day of access. Fonera used to take a Y% cut of the money, and give the rest to you for the use of your bandwidth. After this deal, Fonera will take a Y% cut, Time Warner will take another Z% cut, and you get the rest for the use of your bandwidth.
That's a lot off the top, but if it's not worth it then don't sign up. I expect they will adjust their payouts until they get enough interest.
The big change here is that Time Warner is getting a payout in return for removing a 'you are forbidden from reselling your bandwidth' clause from their terms of service.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
Welcome to the world of wired communications. Judging by your comment, it sounds like you've never had a dialup or DSL connection. While typical dialup problems were noise on the line, the world of DSL is (was) a fun one. I provisioned DSL circuits for a regional (Maine through virginia / East coast) ISP back in the late 90's. We would often spend months trying to get Covad/Northpoint/NAS to get Verizon to install circuits, only to learn that either the loop was too long, or that the line was poor quality and they wouldn't install a new one. Often, it'd be ridiculous things like Verizon installing the line at the wrong building, or wrong floor, or the tech was scared of a dog and didn't install it. Some people don't realize how good things have gotten lately since the cable companies have taken the bulk of broadband control.
This may be a new thing in the U.S., but it has been part of the multiplay packages going in all over Europe.
/. moderations for that
ISPs who lease or just install a CPE box will have multiple WiFi SSIDs running. One for the client, the other advertising their network. So whenever a client roams and finds an access point with the name of their provider, they can use their login credentials and get their own internet connection. This second connection is completely separate from the client's connection, there is no shared IP address or bandwidth.
I think there is a big gap in knowledge of how modern broadband works between those in the U.S. and those in Europe or the Far East. I'm seeing this more and more on american oriented sites like slashdot, "ignorance" is too strong a word, but certainly "lack of understanding" comes close. Internet technologies are pulling way ahead outside of the U.S., where the last mile has seen great advances in both business models and creative uses of technology. When the bandwidth of the last mile (between a head-end and the customer premises) gets sufficient to put multiple channels down the line, the client can get much, much more than just an internet connection. With fibre installations going in, the bandwidth can support multiple HD video channels, multiple internet connections, multiple voice channels, private VPN options, roaming, etc. A client can just choose which bandwidth package they want, e.g. Symmetric or Asymmetric, 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps or more. A handful of TV channels, or more than you could ever watch. VoIP calling plans, that are so cheap that calling most of Europe or North America is free for the first few thousand minutes.
So one of the providers in the U.S. had an executive who took a vacation in Europe, saw the amazing new multiplay boxes, and decided it was a good idea to beat their few oligarchic non-rivals to the punch. I'm glad it's News for Nerds in the U.S., things are looking up over there.
the AC
this post needs some emoticons for slight amounts of sarcasm, some humour, and kind of a tsk-tsk sideways look indicating a mix of sympathy and pity, good luck finding
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on