This is a topic I’ve been thinking about posting on for a couple of weeks now, and when I read University of San Diego Professor Tom Smith’s post this morning in the Right Coast, I figured now was a good time. Remember when we were discussing the issue of free riders, and whether it is correct to treat intellectual property essentially the same as real property since IP is actually non-rivalrous? See, I moved into a new apartment about one month ago and when my roommate and I were deciding whether to get wireless internet…well, let’s just say someone else’s was already available. Now, if you think that a couple of poor law students would free ride off wireless internet access that they were not paying for…well, it may or may not have happened (I refuse to self-incriminate). But if it did happen, then we did feel bad about it. Apparently Prof. Smith had the same dilemma when he was getting some “work” done at a Starbucks and detected the unencrypted wireless network of nearby business. This is how he rationalized it:
Is it wrong to free ride on somebody's wireless network this way? Maybe technically. But it doesn't seem any worse really to me than standing outside Isaac Stern (or some great living musician)'s window and listening to him practice. They really should encrypt their network, but I'm not about to try to get any information from them; I wouldn't know how, anyway. I guess you could apply the Golden Rule and say, would I want somebody free riding on my wireless network? Well, no. But if I knew to the same degree of certainty that that person is as honest as I am, I wouldn't care. Of course, that's impossible to know. You could say I'm just converting what would otherwise be wasted bandwidth into something valuable, and in my case, incredibly valuable.
His rationale was interesting because it made me come to the (obvious) realization that the general norm is that this is “wrong.” I assume the explanation for this is that someone else is paying for a good or service, and it is wrong for you to use this good or service without compensating them in some way. However, even Prof. Smith had a feeling that maybe this wasn’t so bad and that it was somehow acceptable because (assuming the business was not using their bandwidth at the time) the service was going unused anyway, and he was making valuable use from it.
So what ever happened to the wireless at my apartment that we may or may not have been free riding from? A week after we moved in the person got smart and encrypted their network; and my roommate and I were forced to finally pay for internet access. Although, we decided to be nice and not encrypt ours (for now, at least, but I think it’s inevitable that we will at some point).
So what’s the point of all this? Well, this made me think that it’s getting to the point where most people have a wireless card, and if we assume for a moment that there was unlimited bandwidth, there would be NO point in excluding others from using your network (putting aside the concern of hackers). So why charge for it? In fact, a community in San Francisco is trying this idea out. It’s called SFLan and they are offering free wireless internet access to anyone living within their network range. Apparently the network is distributed through nodes that are set up at various points throughout the city. As long as your area has a node, then you can get free access. However, if your area does not have a node, getting one is quite costly ($1100), but it’s a one-time fee and I’m sure people in the area would be willing to share the cost. Another benefit to this type of community is that once you are connected to the network, you would not only be able to get wireless access at your home, but also at various locations around town. Sounds like a great idea to me.
I think eventually this will happen everywhere, almost like access to television or radio. But for now, I’m paying, and thus, I will exclude.
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