The concern over legally using bandwidth is not the issue here.  The
original post was a guy from sunflower.  He is talking about using that
as the lauch point as I understand it.  This is not cable/dsl service,
but frame relay service to a primary Internet provider like
quest,swbis, mci, etc.  That is precisely what they are selling thier
services for.

On Fri, Oct ,  at 10:18:25AM -0500, DCT Jared Smith wrote:
> Wireless neighborhoods was just discussed on Slashdot yesterday,
> for anyone who missed it:
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/18/1716222&mode=thread
> 
> If  you're short on time, set the threshold to about 3 or 4 to read only
> the most relevant comments.
> 
> I'm for one am very interested in this project, and I don't think it's a
> folly at all.
> 
> H o w e v e r , it needs to be approached very carefully, because with
> dotcoms like SprintION crashing around us (still), they're looking
> for both scapegoats and cash, and will not be kind to people using
> bandwidth without paying for it. At this moment, I'm reminded of the
> way Firestone, General Motors, and Standard Oil played mean and
> dirty when it came time to defend their investments. Ralph Nader
> gives this example whenever it's time to look seriously at
> large corporations and how they deal with competition:
> 
> <snip from AlterNet.org>
> 
> "...in the 1930s and 1940s, General Motors, Standard Oil and Firestone
> collaborated to buy up trolley systems in 28 large metropolitan areas,
> then ripped out the tracks while pushing legislators to fund a national
> highway
> system. For this, [Nader] said, the companies were indicted by a federal
> jury in Chicago just after World War II, charged by the Justice Department
> with a criminal violation of antitrust laws, and convicted and fined
> $5000 per company for what Nader called "one of the economic
> crimes of the century."

Kansas City was one of those cities.
> 
> With that in mind, gotta make sure the NANs don't get squashed
> early by not being prepared for the fact that the cable companies and
> the SWBells are in direct competition for this "friendly, neighborhood"
> idea here.
> 
> Say $20 a month might be reasonable to cover costs, but that's $30 less per
> month than a cable modem, and if I were selling cable connexions,
> I'd do all I could to keep from selling a $50 connexion to someone
> who then divides it up to four other people for $20 each... God forbid
> the multilevel marketing folks get ahold of this idea.
> 
> In other words, let's do it honestly, for example, to the point of creating
> a new form of contract with the cable co's than currently exist, if that
> needs to happen.
> 
> Hope this makes sense,
> 
> -Jared
> 
> 
> 
>