Izzit possible, or even a good idea, as a newbie, to organize my immediate neighbors
 

... into a user group, and set up a server with wireless (or wired) routing to serve 4-6 households, for the sole purpose of saving money?

i resent the lack of competition for broadband dollars in my area, and wonder if this would be a feasable project.

could someone address the pros and cons?

mike

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

It certainly is doable, but personally I wouldn't. Yes, it will save a few bucks, but the downside for something like this can be HUGE. The least of your worries would be if the ISP found out. They would probably just cut you off. But if someone on the network did something stupid, like downloading warez, you could have your friendly, neighborhood policeman knocking at your door.


Unless you would trust your neighbors completely, totally and without reservation, there are just too many risks.

While I admire your cooperative spirit, as they say "no good deed goes unpunished" and in all reality, sadly I think you'd only be setting yourself up for headaches and trouble. IANAL but the bottom line is that if it's your connection, then you are responsible for it. If your neighbors download music, it's your IP address, and thus you will be held responsible if or when the RIAA comes knocking. If your ISP caps how much data you can download per month, and your neighbors put you over the limit, you'll get stuck with the overage charge. Basically if anybody has a any sort of complaint or problem with the traffic originating from your ISP account, you'll be held resposible.

Personally, I think that sucks, as I think there should never be a penalty for being a generous person or just someone who is happy to share his/her connection with neighbors as a nice gesture, but in a litigious society such as exists today, opinions like mine don't count for much. Even if you never had any legal issues, you can bet that your 4 or 5 neighbors would eventually start complaining that "since my family was on vacation for 2 weeks and didn't use the connection, we shouldn't have to pay for a full month's access, yada yada yada". Call me a pessimist but I think you're better off just getting your own connection and encrypting it + MAC verification if you go wireless. Just my two cents

The chance of this happening depends on which part of the world you live in too ;)

Right. Here I pay a blank-media levy which justifies me 'stealing' as much music as I like ;)
Too bad there is very little I listen to that is published by RIAA labels.


As to the OP: some ISPs allow you to resell bandwidth. Perhaps look into this as a way of keeping your neighbors accountable. Likely though, others have filled you in on the reality of trying to do a good thing.

Perhaps talk to a 'net cafe to see how they deal with this issue.

In my country, we do have ISPs who offer "shared" cable plans so that you don't need to invest in a modem or router. But it would be a bad idea because your allowed bandwidth is divided by the number of connections and going by the speeds we get here, it would make 56k dialup connections look great.

omg, what a world we live in, huh...
 

i confess i had not even considered all those issues, but alas, how right you all are, no doubt

thanks, all of you, for your kind (and wise) advice...

newmike

I wouldn't do it. For one, when your neighbor's download files from fast servers, it'll slow down the net for everyone else... never a great thing. Second, the above posters are correct in that if your neighbor's do anything bad... like download warez, pirated music or movies, kiddie porn, hack into something, whatever, the blame will probably be put on you. Most ISPs prohibit the sharing of their connections anyway.

It's a very good idea. After all, that's what any ISP does, they buy a broadband line and then sell access to it. Speakeasy used to encourage it. Comcast or Verizon might not like it, but most broadband carriers aren't going to care.

Get a 400 or 500/month T1, split the cost 6 or 8 ways, and set up a wireless network to handle it.

The RIAA just lost a case where they couldn't prove "Victoria" was the one downloading the songs. And the cops aren't the least bit interested in catching anyone but the person who's actually the pervert.