Mostly Geek Thoughts and Trivia

I get this question quite often through my connection to socalfreenet.org which does its little bit to bridge the digital divide. It comes in various forms:

How can I do what you do?
How can I share internet with my neighbors?
How can I screw the telcos and cable companies and unleash the creative power of people through the internet?

But they amount to the same thing. As one of the purposes of my blogging here is the totally selfish one of being able to point people at questions I answer repeatedly, here is tonight’s answer to a recent email (who, unlike most, offered to buy us lunch – thanks!).

• You are right to steer away from residential services with their restrictive sharing terms and look for business internet providers. However, carefully check the TOS for the business internet. We use business internet (particularly cable), but they do not permit reselling. People have worked around that legally by setting up co-ops and then paying a membership fee to the co-op. But in most states the co-op has to be a legally registered entity with all that that can entail. Not hard, but something to consider. Of the nationwide providers, speakeasy.net is the only one that I know of that allows (even encourages) reselling. You’ll need Covad at your local CLEC for that to work (quite likely).

• Meraki.com, who provide our current favourite gear, also has support for billing that sounds like it might work as you propose. They do take a slice, but its hassle free for you pretty much. Note, though, that I’ve never used the billing features(!), so ymmv. (Note that this post isn’t about gear, otherwise I’d wax poetical about why Meraki makes deployment much simpler and cost effective).

• Suggestion: start small. Identify a few people, close to each other, who are keen, and get them going first. Once they’ve used it for a couple of months it becomes viral after that and you won’t have to do much to sell it once word gets out.

• distribution over a physical area is tough unless you have a rooftop and a good view of what’s around you. Hills, trees, tall buildings will all work against you. Apartment buildings are relatively easy to cover, but ….

• power is what we look for first when doing installations. Rooftops often have power for A/C, but equally often have no outlets. We don’t have an electrician in our midst, but often the landlord does and will pay them to do what’s necessary. PoE let’s you run cat-5 to where power already is.

Doubtless lots of other things too, but its late and I’m tired (I’ve caught my daughter’s flu I’m sure).