Can I rent access to my wifi to my neighbors?

[Jerry®]

I was reading a couple articles about doing so using this company to go through http://www.hotspotsystem.com/. I've had some neighbors ask if they could pay to use my wifi. Could I actually do it? Or are there legal things involved? Currently I have 20Mbps cable broadband via Comcast for about $45-50/mo. That's the cheapest in our town for cable broadband and slow DSL is not too far behind. So, what if I setup my router as a hotspot and offered (those in range) access for like $10/mo??

[Acer]

Read your provider's TOS. I'll bet you won't like what you read.

[cbelt3]

Legally no, as noted above. Illegally.. I've done it quite successfully. Simply... give me $20 a month, and I'll give you the password. Password changes every month.

Of course you ARE liable for their use.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

The only semi-legal way to do it is subscribe as a business and set up some sort of legal affiliation, something like how Starbucks and other companies share WiFi. Or you could adopt them...

As long as they do not abuse it, most of the time cable/phone companies never know when this happens. Lots of people don't set up their access points properly and have people leeching and never hear from the service provider.

[kj4btkljv]

It's most likely listed as a "no-no" in Comcast's terms of service you signed.

cbelt3 wrote:
Of course you ARE liable for their use.

Exactly!

Think of it this way - since it's your connection, and unless you're really geeky and have just about every bell and whistle turned off to filter content and connections on your own router, what's keeping a neighbor from Bitorrenting movie and music files all day long?

Guess who gets the copyright infringement letter from their ISP?

I wouldn't do it.

Now, having said all that, does anybody know if Comcast has a level of service that let's you resell the connection to subscribers of some type? There's gotta be businesses out there that are using Comcast as their provider, and are doing something like this, no?

Jeff

[Jerry®]

OK that's what I was afraid of -liability and legality. Damn. Such a good idea too.

[cbelt3]

Jerry-

When I went under the table, I put a Cat5e line between my house and my next door neighbor. A nice Mormon family. he was an international tax expert who worked at the same company. I felt safe. I still put him on a subnet so he didn't have access into my house's network.

When he moved out and a Russian construction guy who was going through a divorce moved in, I unplugged the cable. He asked, and I told him that it had 'broken'.

If you want to go under the table, you *can* use opendns.org on your router and secure malware, warez, and nasty illegal stuff sites from their access. Make it part of the verbal agreement (don't put ANY of it in writing, cash only, etc.._) If they're sucking down your bandwidth you can even pick up a router that has QOS capability on it.

Good luck !

[Sam3]

Geez! I need to wake up. I thought the title of the post was "Can I rent access to my wife to my neighbors."

[Paul F.]

Sam3 wrote:
Geez! I need to wake up. I thought the title of the post was "Can I rent access to my wife to my neighbors."

And that would have been a WHOLE different sort of thread! :boink:

[Acer]

Paul F. wrote:
[quote=Sam3]
Geez! I need to wake up. I thought the title of the post was "Can I rent access to my wife to my neighbors."

And that would have been a WHOLE different sort of thread! :boink:
Even in that case, read your "provider" TOS before proceeding.