Bandwidth-Sharing App Brings Connectivity to All

An excerpt

Your neighbour can help. A new app lets users share mobile internet connections with anyone around them, helping the data-starved avoid roaming charges and steep overage fees.

This will really piss off providers, because you'll utilize the plans.......I like it, I may not use it, but I like it.

I wonder at what point does this become a Tragedy of the Commons? Who goes into the hole first, so someone else can build credit? If someone ends up with negative credits at the end of the month, do they have to pay someone for it?

Its a matter of people taking advantage of a system riding on someone elses shoulders.

How about the providers start putting some of the profit margins into actually service.

and by service I mean to help it's customers and not trying to sell more product.

I know plenty of families that only use their bandwidth for checking their email / casual web surfing, but they're paying for a 2 mbps connection. They could easily split this connectivity amongst 7+ people without noticing any kind of hindrance in performance (unless 2-3 of them decide to stream or install massive files directly from the internet).

When I shared my connection with the upstairs neighbors, one of them contracted a virus of some sort that almost terminated my service with [insert internet provider here], so I wonder how many people would be willing to take a similar risk by letting others in on their connection.

Good point.

I have also heard of someone going to jail due to inappropriate web surfing, when someone using their un-secure network was the actual culprit.

The illegal activity was tracked based on the IP address of the router.