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Comment by efitz | Hacker News Reader

I looked into getting a Helium hotspot, but when I looked at my ISP‘s terms of service, the Helium use case is explicitly forbidden (I use Frontier Internet in Florida.)

If you’re not familiar with it, what a Helium hotspot does is allow compatible IOT devices to share your Internet connection.

I suspect that allowing random third parties to use your Internet connection it’s explicitly forbidden by the terms of service of most ISPs, especially when you are being monetarily compensated/rewarded for such sharing.

Excerpt from ToS: “Customers may not retransmit the Service or make the Service available to anyone outside the premises (i.e. Wi-Fi or other methods of networking).”

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> I suspect that allowing random third parties to use your Internet connection it’s explicitly forbidden by the terms of service of most ISPs

I suspect that most people don't read the terms of service.

I mean there's a lot of innovation and good things happening from people intentionally breaking these things - "OK, sue me", to test these terms.

Except that an ISP will just suspend your account, and if you object they'll be the ones that go "OK, sue me".

If it’s any consolidation Apple and Amazon break those ToS by allowing third party devices to connect and use bandwidth.

I think these terms are pretty hard to enforce and not sure how your ISP would differentiate traffic.

The same thing happened with AirBnB and Uber and they are still around. Most people disregard the terms and conditions. ToS exist because of (and for) lawyers.

Unauthorized access of their network could be be prosecuted as felony. Those are rules to access their network. Like or not, people do get prosecuted for violating these terms.[1]

1. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/217115/20110719-schwa...

I guess the difference is the size of entity you are breaking the terms and conditions with and the impact that breaking such terms and conditions will have on their business model.

R.I.P Aaron Swartz

Funnily my ISP was actually selling Helium hotspots themselves. :)

I have long thought that ISPs should charge by bandwidth used. It would incentivize improving infrastructure. Any ISP that would charge by bandwidth used would want their customers reselling bandwidth.

>It would incentivize improving infrastructure

No it wouldn't. The actual usage has a negligible impact on the expenses for infrastructure. Most people barely use any bandwidth anyway. Even on 1 Gbit/s lines the average bandwidth used is in the single digit Mbit/s. And the usage basically doesn't differ if they have a 100Mbit/s or 10Gbit/s connection. Also those countries where data caps are still a thing are generally those with the worst Internet.

The usage in Switzerland, South Korea, and other developed countries is very different. They use the bandwidth available.

Netflix and YouTube show us that many people want more bandwidth.

There would be no data caps if paying for bandwidth consumed.

I work for an ISP in Switzerland. If you download a game you use 1Gbit/s+ for a few minutes instead of an hour or two. The average bandwidth used stays the same.

Both don't require a lot of bandwidth and you have caches for their content.

You can buy additional data if you've used your included data. That's basically the same.

Paying for bandwidth used is exactly what I am talking about. In less developed places, 1Gbit/s is simply unavailable and usage is capped. There is no economic incentive to build better infrastructure for applications that do require a lot of bandwidth (e.g., Netflix).

> It would incentivize improving infrastructure.

How?

That doesn't seem to work in any industry that is close to being a utility. Just look at toll roads.

The utility from which I buy electricity charges me per kWh consumed. They earn more revenue when I use more electricity. If they charged a flat $100 per month like my ISP, they would, like my ISP, cap my usage.

However, most of the cost is producing those kWh and it's linear with kWh produced, while an ISP's costs are about fixed per household...

That’s a chicken and egg situation. The costs are fixed because they have no incentive to build more infrastructure.

If you live in a place with only one or two ISPs and they only charge a flat rate per month for capped usage, you never get more bandwidth. The system is working as designed.

The real fix is to take down some barriers to entry for new ISPs ;)

Not the Terms of Service guys!

I think you could argue that Helium is not making "the Service" itself available, since it's not providing an actual Internet connection as a Wi-Fi network would. The only thing using "the Service" itself is the Helium hotspot that is within your premises.

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