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Question

Creating a street-wide WiFi network.

Mar 13, 2015 5:49AM PDT

Hi,
No fibre optic services are available on our road and wont be for a long time but, the street in front of ours has cable services with virgin media.

So my question is:
If I was to pay someone on this street I'll call it street A, to purchase cable services with virgin, could I use outdoor wireless repeaters to bring their network to my street (street B)?

I was hoping to make this a street wide network where each household would pay a small fee towards the internet each month which would entitle them to a unique username and password which would allow them access to our street wide network.

Each household would be allocated a chunk of bandwidth from the total bandwidth of 152mbps. Each household will be allocated bandwidth based on how much internet they use.

So would this be possible? Will there be any legal issues and what process would I have to go through?
Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: street wide WiFi
Mar 13, 2015 6:29AM PDT

Commonly, the ISP (Comcast in your case) doesn't allow this: a subscription is for just one household. So the best thing to do is to ask them to extend the services to your street.

Then, in the USA, you must have to ask the FCC or the local or state equivalent about the legal issues. You might have to get their permission to be a wireless operator.

Kees

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RE
Mar 13, 2015 8:22AM PDT

Comcast isn't the provider. Virgin media (UK) is. There's nothing specified in the terms and conditions that prevents this. It's just the placing of the extenders and things like that I'm worried about.

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RE: RE
Mar 13, 2015 8:24AM PDT

And also it is not possible for them to extend their services to my street I have asked multiple times.

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you would be a service provider
Mar 13, 2015 9:09AM PDT

you need to check your local laws pertaining to becoming a service provider. you would not be able to use a personal account for this, it would have to be a business. In addition, the main account holder would be personally responsible for what others access so if someone is accessing kiddy porn, it will be the account holders computers and devices that would get searched first. I have seen it happened to someone who was sharing access with a neighbor.

Only other option would be if you can get everyone in your street to chip in and pay for virgins extension, then most likely they would so it.

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Re: Virgin
Mar 13, 2015 7:34PM PDT

I really doubt if Virgin allows any of his customers (be it a private person or a household) to become a 'sub-provider' himself. Did you ask them already? That would be the first step, I think.

Kees