Legality of hotspots?

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headstrong

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Hi All,

Is it legal to own a hotspot? ie mug and bean? wot about a hotspot that a person runs in theit neighbourhood?

I thought that it illegal to share an adsl line over boundary..?

Any info would be great!

Thanks
 
"[Johannesburg, 17 October 2003] - It appears as though wireless Internet access (WiFi) is here to stay, as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has reached the conclusion that it is legal as long as the service is provided within the borders of a customer's premises."

Does this mean it is legal to stick a wireless AP on my friends house we could share an internet connection?
 
basically~~~
But what if u stick it on the wall between ur friend's house and ur house?
They didnt mention nothing on that, and each side of the wireles AP is only sending to its premises on either side :p
 
But What if u stick the AP underground...? then u arent passing any boundaries then...? :)
 
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headstrong said:
But What if u stick the AP underground...? then u arent passing any boundaries then...? :)
Click to expand...

get captain wifi to help you out with laser goggles and the likes. to help dig holes
and remember put the video on google earth when you are finished!
 
Nameite said:
basically~~~
But what if u stick it on the wall between ur friend's house and ur house?
They didnt mention nothing on that, and each side of the wireles AP is only sending to its premises on either side :p
Click to expand...

I think as long as it doesn't cross public property, i.e. a road, its legal. So if your neighbours it should be technically legal as although its crossing a boundary its not crossing any public property in the process.
 
Who cares about the legailities though?? There are a million WISP's doing it, not to mention all the WUG's!
 
My friend lives 100 metres away!!

Doesn't this quote mean anything

"that it is legal as long as the service is provided within the borders of a customer's premises."

It says that it is legal as long as it's within their houses...., so technically we could share an internet connection because it is only accessed from within our two houses.....
 
@headstrong,

You should be a stand-up comic. You are quite good at quoting one piece of paper without any knowledge of the legislation.

Go find ICASA's definition of a 'Boundry' used in context to Wireless applications

Who cares about the legailities though?? There are a million WISP's doing it, not to mention all the WUG's!
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the WUGs dont make money from the Wifi network, and NOR do they offer internet. Its a community network. Go Read the new act and when you get to the section on Community Networks, take note.
 
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yeah - do some actual reading of the links posted above

there is no clarity on legality of this kind of arrangement at the moment - clarity is unlikely to arrive from ICASA any time soon

personally and not as legal advice: it will be fine as long as there is no commercial aspect
 
RichardP said:
Just to clarify, the WUGs dont make money from the Wifi network, and NOR do they offer internet. Its a community network. Go Read the new act and when you get to the section on Community Networks, take note.
Click to expand...

The WUG's themselves don't offer internet, but numerous users accrosss all the WUG's share their internet connections.

My point was: The legislation is all but irrelevant as it's a tiny private setup. Even on a commercial scale, no one really takes note as there are literrally hudereds of WISPs.

Some of them have substantial infrastructure an prettly large client bases, and yet no licence.
 
Carlhead said:
The WUG's themselves don't offer internet, but numerous users accrosss all the WUG's share their internet connections.
My point was: The legislation is all but irrelevant as it's a tiny private setup. Even on a commercial scale, no one really takes note as there are literrally hudereds of WISPs.
Some of them have substantial infrastructure an prettly large client bases, and yet no licence.
Click to expand...

Carlhead actually the ISP's care very much about this because they are essentially
left behind, they don't want us to send commercial data over boundaries. Many of
the gentlemen from Jawug actually have shares in ISP's or work for ISP's.

The battle raging presently between the ISP's/Telkom/Sentech/Vodacom who want's to have centralised control all in alliance against "us" who want to have loose
cooperative decentralised networks(fixed wired, telephone poles and Wi-Fi) is also
raging in America. The thing is that our legal system is totally different with our Constitution protecting us against stupid laws. Just recently the Constitutional court ruled
against various laws of the ANC. P.15 of the ECA is an unenforceable joke for example. I have to differ with dominic. "Rulings" are made by judges in a criminal proceding which ofcourse will never happen as explained elsewhere. (What I mean is that after Icasa have been bribed they can rule whatever they want. We can ignore their rulings
since the Icasa can't enforce them on community networks: They can't fine us like the FCC can in America. Fines are given by judges, our wonderful constitution protects
us against the dogs like Telecoms lawyers, Icasa, Telkom etc ..s).

Everybody knows that the ISP's are bribing Icasa. All these things have to be considered. For example we the public have no access to Icasa, while the ISP's have the
cell number of the relevent officials themselves. Here they scheme to 'ban' decentralised networks. This is totally unfair and thankfully our prosecuting authority takes note of this.

And may I ask that some of the condecension and sarcasm be toned down. I myself
have been guilty of this.....
 
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captainwifi said:
Carlhead actually the ISP's care very much about this because they are essentially
left behind, they don't want us to send commercial data over boundaries. Many of
the gentlemen from Jawug actually have shares in ISP's or work for ISP's.
Click to expand...

We do? News to me! I myself work at a Security Guard Lazer fitment centre! :rolleyes:
 
@captainwifi

Yeah... we have a satellite uplink, 10MegaBit transponder just for torrents, we have applied for a license for some SAT3 cable bandwidth - but we could not get permission to dig up the road to lay the ethernet cables.

What un-substantiated rubbish that spews from your keyboard.
 
Everyone missed my point totally :/

I was talking to headstrong and explaining that ICASA has bigger fish to fry so a small home user implementation is really no worry what so ever, and he should go ahead.
 
Carlhead, we did not miss your point, but merely "sidestepped" it so that we could reply to "you know who"
 
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