Why can't we be this smart? Not your father's ISP

[flashl]

Some ISPs simply discourage end users from offering WiFi connections to neighbors; most explicitly rule it out in their terms of service. But a small Canadian ISP called Wireless Nomad actually requires it.

Nomad does things a little differently. The company is subscriber-owned, volunteer-run, and open-source friendly. It offers a neutral Internet connection with no bandwidth caps or throttling, and it makes a point of creating wireless access points at the end of each DSL connection that can be used, for free, by the public. Bell Canada this is not.

"People like to share," says Nomad co-founder Damien Fox when we talk about the company's history. And if WiMAX radios run cheap enough, the members of Wireless Nomad could eventually blanket much of Toronto with high-speed ‘Net access. The operation has been tough to keep running, and Fox admits that "if we knew then what we knew now... we probably wouldn't have done it because it was too crazy."

But Fox and cofounder Steve Wilton have kept Wireless Nomad up for two years already, and they hope to see the subscriber-owned model take off in more communities in Canada and the US. Here's how they did it (and keep on doing it) at a lower price than Bell Canada's own DSL offerings.

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This is thinking outside of the box.

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Because we'd make it illegal, like in Pennsylvania?

Not a 1:1 analogy, but the fact is that when Philadelphia realized that Verizon, etc weren't wiring up the poorer neighborhoods, they decided to install their own WiFi service.

Well, all hell broke loose, and using their lobbying power, convinced former Philly Mayor Ed Rendell to outlaw the practice in Pennsylvania given the one-city exception of his former home town.

My round-about point here is that in our "free market" economy, large corporations are only too eager to use that ol' evil government to make sure their markets are protected...

[flashl]

2. Ahh, the rule of law.

Setting precedence in one locale then the “law” is duplicated in other states.