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Startup Launches Open Wi-Fi, Challenging ISPs
Chuckles08 writes "Forbes has a story about how FreedomPop is trying to disrupt the public Wi-fi business. From the article: 'Getting hosed by your Internet service provider may seem as inevitable as death and taxes, but a new startup aims to change that. Startup FreedomPop, which is backed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, DCM and Mangrove Capital, provides cheaper Internet access and the ability for people to share access with others on its network.'"
I hope it can disrupt the connectivity oligopoly that reigns at the moment. North America's connectivity is, on average, twice as bad as Romania in 30 something position. Lets do this!
Tomorrow is another day...
At some point, someone is going to get into *serious* legal trouble through this. Most likely via someone using their connection transfering child porn and getting caught. It only has to happen once. The story will be widely publicised, including all the horrifying details of the caught-in-the-middle victim having their life torn apart, losing their job, being vilified by their neighbours, and having every computer, phone, games console, hard drive and USB stick they own confiscated as evidence. As a result of this, other users will be terrified to share their connection and risk becoming the next victim of an investigation.
The same reason there are so few tor exit nodes.
I was keen on this until I had a look at the privacy policy. They don't even pay lipservice to privacy, explicitly saying that they will combine whatever information they get from you with information from third parties and also share your information with third parties. I wouldn't use this without a VPN.
We have it here in Israel and it seems to work pretty well. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000768403&fid=1725
If more people did it then the feds wouldn't have such an easy time busting down peoples doors. The whole reason the courts are OK with it is because it is seen as highly probable that the owner or someone within the household committed a crime. However if you have shared access then there is a higher chance that a neighbor did it. If you multiply that and half of the busts are of innocent people there it defeats the points of busting people in the first place.
In the city of Groningen, The Netherlands, population 180,000, the cable company has converted the wireless routers of most of the subscribers into dual private and open Wi-Fi access points. Almost all subscribers agreed to participate. In return the subscribers can use each others access points using their own username and password. As you walk or cycle down the street the connection stays permanent as you move from one access point to the next. Both the cable company and the wireless phone operators are in fierce competition with asymmetrical infrastructure. This move by the cable company seems to be designed to undercut the need for 3G/4G access for tablets and smartphones. There are plans to roll out this new type of usage throughout the country.
FWIW, all four major carriers offer this in France:
http://www.ariase.com/fr/guides/hotspots-wifi.html (url is in French)
Basically, users from your carrier get to use your Wifi, and in return you get to use their own Wifi routers across the country.
France is not alone, either. For carriers, it's a cheap way to roll-out a nationwide Wifi network, with the added benefit that they can then redirect mobile data traffic to land pipes, resulting in less encumbered wireless networks.
FTFA:
Stokols believes this service will disrupt others such as FON, another free Wi-Fi startup. That’s because FON cuts deals with large telecommunications providers such as BT, while FreedomPop doesn’t need to. FON users do not share the majority of their access, because they are home users where others in residential areas do not need access as much, he says.
Unfortunately FreedomPop is building their service on top of Clearwire's WiMax service, which doesn't bode well for the performance or the reliability of the resulting service.
Clearwire ceased their buildout more than a year ago, and assuming they survive the next few years will be trying to roll out an LTE network on their spectrum. In the meantime their WiMax network is already oversubscribed both on a per-tower basis and a backhaul basis; as a result the actual speed of the service isn't much better than CDMA 3G, never mind HSPA+ or LTE. Adding a bunch of users is only going to make this worse, especially since FreedomPop isn't the only service taking advantage of Clearwire's cutthroat rates.
Clearwire's 2.6GHz spectrum may also be a minor concern here. Based on the results of Clearwire's own efforts, their spectrum works well for mobile use but has a lot of trouble penetrating homes, which is where a service like FreedomPop is most likely to be used.
Ultimately like any other wireless service this is going to be entirely area-dependent. But for most users they're effectively buying into a cheap 3G-ish service with no quality of service standards. It's cheap, but that's about all FreedomPop has going for it.