[LINK] The market for wireless

Birch, Jim Jim.Birch at dhhs.tas.gov.au
Wed Dec 1 10:13:01 AEDT 2010


Tom Worthington wrote:

> With NBN providing the wireless, I could take my cordless phone, or
tablet computer, to visit someone down the road, or on the other side of
the country.

How about a system where anyone can put up a public wireless point but
with a small fixed per Mb charging mechanism?  No enough to make a
killing but enough to cover cost of providing the service.  A kind of
NBN-away-from-home option.  

This would require a login or key and router with a bit of validation
logic.  Use obtains a key tied to their home NBN account and places it
on their phone/tablet/whatever.  The key is used to validate the user
and provide a change point for access.  This would require a smarter
router and a central charge management system.  If you don't have an NBN
connection you pay more but part of what you pay goes toward your NBN
"future" connection.  If you never get a home connection your connection
costs taper as you own more of a virtual point.

This would 
- drive NBN participation
- create ubiquitous low cost (but not free) networks.
- support participants in a prosocial system, ie, where you get paid to
provide a social good but can't charge monopoly rents.
- AFAIKS the phone networks won't be able to support the mobile user
data volume soon - if they can now.  And they're very expensive.  

The router code could be open sourced (or a standard) so that home
router manufacturers could add it to their code base.  Obviously it
would need to do stuff like isolating the outsiders from the local users
and each other.  It would also need to track usage in a verifiable
manner.  The NBN could sell a couple of options themselves but allow the
market to provide.

Difficulties I see would be just getting it off the ground, validating
charging and picking up any cheating, and validating users.  Turf wars
could be an issue but the return to the router provider - and power
limits - could be tuned to control this.  Current incumbents and rent
seekers won't like it.

Is this possible, practicable?

- Jim




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