Stealing Cable or Selling Cookies?
There is considerable dispute within the Free Wireless movement over who, if anyone, should pay for
Internet access. Many Free Wireless pioneers envision a return to the utopian ideals that marked the early
days of the Internet: an organic, dynamic system that would bind communities with free, unregulated
access. One such person is Drew Ulricksen, who last year founded the Free Wireless advocacy group,
Wireless Anarchy. "The beauty of WiFi," says Ulricksen, "is that with this technology we don't need to
pay anyone for last mile access---we can do it ourselves." Ulricksen's views are balanced by those of a
more realistic camp that champions the idea of wireless broadband, but recognizes that, if there's ever
going to be a broadband revolution, somebody has to pick up the tab.
A few of the more entrepreneurially minded have begun collecting money for the service. Sean Berry, a
Unix systems engineer in Menlo Park, Calif., pays about $80 a month for his DSL service, which he
beams to friends and neighbors who chip in to cover the monthly fee. Berry's collective points toward an
innovative business model, since the cost to each user is a fraction of what they'd otherwise pay.
The debate between the "free" and "fee" camps is a friendly one. Less cordial is the growing dispute
between small entrepreneurs and the telecom companies who are becoming increasingly upset that their
broadband is being resold. So far, this hasn't been much of a problem, since the Free Wireless movement
is so small that most ISPs haven't explicitly forbid them. "It's largely off their radar map," says
Townsend, of NYC Wireless. But that won't be true for much longer. Andrew Johnson, a spokesman for
AT&T, likens the actions of entrepreneurs such as Berry to cable theft and threatens to disconnect any
customer caught sharing their connection. In fact, AT&T has begun to conduct regular neighborhood
fly-overs in search of rogue signals being transmitted from its customers. But AT&T can't catch
everyone, particularly in urban areas where an 802.11b signal gets lost in the sea of radio waves created
by other wireless devices. So for now, Free Wireless is proliferating.
But the battle over broadband raises the important question of whether bandwidth is a commodity. Small
entrepreneurs think it is. After all, they reason, can a flour company demand a cut of the profits from
cookies you sell at a bake sale just because you baked them with their flour? Absurd as this question
might seem, the Free Wireless movement is forcing ISPs and telecom companies to define the exact legal
limits of bandwidth allocation. That, in essence, is the problem with Free Wireless: It's at the mercy of
the Baby Bells and cable companies, which, once the movement reaches critical mass, will crack down
hard when they discover they're losing market share to a bunch of hackers.
Many of these do-it-yourself broadband networkers pride themselves on scrupulous adherence to the law,
pointing out that the contracts they sign with ISPs to get their broadband connections don't prohibit them
from reselling some of their bandwidth. People like Dewayne Hendricks, a wireless network developer
who runs a company called the Dandin Group, pays $925 a month for his T-1 connection, which, he
says, "gives me the right to act as my own ISP and redistribute bandwidth [wirelessly] without
restrictions." In turn, he is spreading broadband to neighborhoods where cable or DSL providers can't or
won't service, such as the wireless network he recently began building for the Turtle Mountain Chippewa
Reservation in Belcourt, N.D.
Along with his partner Matt Peterson, Tim Pozar, the co-founder of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group,
was among the first to help communities set up 802.11b networks. "We want to educate people on how
to create 802.11b networks that adhere to the FCC rules and regulations on how you can use this portion
of unlicensed bandwidth," he explains. "We're encouraging people to build mom-and-pop [wireless
networks] and a lot of people are going out there and doing it." Indeed, hundreds of Bay Area networks
have already been built on this model. It would be tough to argue with Pozar's prescription for spreading
broadband were it not for the sticky issue of legality: One problem with Free Wireless which Hendricks
points out is that FCC regulations forbid the kind of souped-up base stations that beam wireless
broadband signals to entire neighborhoods. It's true that the Free Wireless folks can spread broadband
more quickly and easily than a traditional ISP, but at the same time they operate in a legal gray area---a
fact that may eventually lead to their demise.
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