HotSpotzz wants your Network

[lonnie]

I have few details, and cetainly have no agreement, but the guys behind Hotspotzz want to use your network to allow their customers to roam. They are trying to quickly expand their network and this could be good for us all.

In return they seem willing to provide an authentication service for you. Would you guys be willing to allow them any fees for doing the authentication? Would you be willing to pay fees to allow your people to roam anywhere there is a HotSpotzz authorized network?

It sounds like they have already around 200 locations and have just signed a major customer that will provide another 500. If we could all add a bunch of StarOS sites to the mix it would look pretty good for everybody.

I feel this is the way of the future as everybody wants to have their customers able to go anywhere and use their radio just like they use their cell phones. This sort of operation takes cash to build, so the question is - how much are you willing to contribute to get this started?

I have to add for the guys worried that my involvement might compromise your LAN and allow it to be used against your will. HotSpotzz capability must be enabled by you. You also have to enter the HotSpotzz authentication server information and you also have to register the Access Point with them. This is not something that can or will be done without your assistance and approval.

[dkii]

I would have no problem allowing Hotspotzz customers on my network, however, as we are just getting off our feet, we don't really have the money to put into it, YET, but I see no problem with them using our access points. Most of ours will be tower-mounted, so I don't know how well they will do for hot spots, due to the coverage patterns of our antennas and the local tree cover, a bare card with no external antenna won't get you far. I've been investigating adding an omni with a wide vertical beamwidth at a lower level on the tower, to try to get some sort of mobile wireless going, We're using horiz. polarity, so I think if I set the channel somewhere between the one's I'm using now, and use a vert. polarized omni, I shouldn't get into any interference problems. Definately something I would be interested in the near future

[metrotel]

We developed a large multi-state paging network several years ago.

The first item in the agreement between carriers was:

...THAT THE NETWORK WOULD NEVER BE IN THE BUSINESS OF SELLING DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC - ONLY PROVIDE SERVICES TO THE CARRIERS...

The next item was:

...THAT THE CARRIERS WOULD ONLY MARKET UNDER THEIR OWN TOWERS...

If you get caught marketing under your neigbor's tower, you are cut off.

With those issues aside, it's time to get to the money.

You can have a "bong" fee for connecting to an non-home network this fee is kept by the distant carrier. Other fees might include time and/or bandwidth charges.

A portion of the network charges is kept by the "network" and rebates are paid to the carriers monthly.

Once a year, excess fees are paid to the carriers based on their percentage of traffic.

It's not that tough, the phone companies have been doing it for years.

And lastly,,,, you could enter into a "bill-and-keep" arrangement with your neighbors - just "swap" traffic for each other. You bill the customer, keep the money and your neighbor does the same.

Most of the billing software for our network could easily be modified for IP traffic billing.