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Telecommunications Here's how to make money from your home wireless network
Telecommunications Here's how to make money from your home wireless network | Here's how to make money from your home wireless network |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 23 May 2008 | |
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Tomizone has been offering this functionality for more than a year but according to CEO Steve Simms, the concept has only taken off since the DIR-300 carrying a Tomizone sticker on the box started appearing in shops about three months ago. "We've now got 600 units installed in Australia and 400 in New Zealand, and 90 percent of those have been sold in the last 11 weeks since the DIR-300 went on sale" he told iTWire. When any casual user tries to access a Tomizone WiFi access point they are greeted not with a request for a password but with request for credit card details and a message telling them they will be charged for usage: 50 percent of the money received by Tomizone is repaid to the owner of the access point. An alternative access method is via a one time numeric code. Sims said this could be used by coffee shops to give customers access via a Tomizone hotspot either at no charge or for a fee. Either way the coffee shop owner pays Tomizone for the usage. Tomizone charges usage at $US2.50 for a one hour pass or 60Mbytes of data, $U3.50 for a one day pass (160MBytes) and $US18.00 (1200Mbytes). Owners receive 50 percent of whatever portion of the pass is used on their hotspot. Simms said that the key feature of the DIR-300 that had enabled Tomizone to ramp up its marketing was that it offered dual SSIDs: so the user can configure it with two quite separate virtual wireless networks, one for their own use, and one for guests accessing via Tomizone: The D-Link router on which the Tomizone software had initially been installed had only a single SSID. Another key factor, in Australia, is that Tomizone has now clarified the status of the service with the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Because the owner of Tomizone is offering a public communications service for a fee there was a strong possibility that this would be illegal without a carrier licence: this notwithstanding the 'hotspot determination' - Telecommunications Act 1997 - Determination under subsection 51(1) (No. 1 of 2002) that exempts coffee shop owners offering WiFi access for a fee from needing a carrier licence. The advice given to iTWire when we queried the ACMA last year was that a carrier licence would be required. An ACMA spokeswoman told iTWire: "If access is being offered [for payment] outside the property boundary then the provisions in the hotspot determination would not apply. If a network unit [the access point] is used to supply carriage services [ie Internet access] to the public then the owner of the network unit must hold a carrier licence issued under the Telco Act 1997." Simms said that after many discussions with the ACMA Tomizone had now obtained clarification that the hotspot determination does apply. The documentation that comes with the router now includes a statement to this effect and a link to an information page on the ACMA's web site. Tomizone is also expanding internationally: it has operations in the US, UK and most recently India. Sims said there were plans for other countries with Vietnam, Mexico and South America high on the list.
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