Sharing a Broadband Connection with Neighbors: Tech Clinic

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• Internet
• tech clinic
• Tech Clinic January 2007
• broadband
• DSL
• cable modem

I live in a condo complex where the residents live in close proximity. Is it legal for the resident of one condo to get DSL or cable broadband service and share it through a community-funded computer club?

It could be illegal — and it certainly violates the terms and conditions of the agreement you signed with your DSL or cable Internet provider. Let's take a look at Comcast's "Acceptable Use Policy" as an example. (Terms from other Internet service providers are similar in spirit.)

Under section ix, prohibited use includes "resell[ing] the Service or otherwise mak[ing] available to anyone outside the Premises the ability to use the Service (i.e., Wi-Fi, or other methods of network-ing)." Section xx forbids "connect[ing] the Comcast Equipment to any computer outside of your Premises."

In short, you can use a router to set up a wired Ethernet or a closed, passworded Wi-Fi network, but sharing your Internet service — even by operating an open Wi-Fi node — would violate the terms of service. Could your Internet service provider check up on you? Technically, it's possible for your ISP to monitor the packets running up its pipe and see if there are multiple computers connected, but determining if those computers were inside your condo or simply near it would require a bit more legwork.

Legal issues notwithstanding, sharing access as you suggest might not work as well as you'd like. Not only does sharing a connection split the overall bandwidth, it also subjects everybody to the reliability of a single modem.

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