Common Good, Good Citizen, Good Neighbor, Civic Mindedness, Common Community/etc......

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gaffo
Posts: 4259
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:15 am

Common Good, Good Citizen, Good Neighbor, Civic Mindedness, Common Community/etc......

Post by gaffo »

Howdy folks,

I've had a home Wi-Fi network set up now for 7 years, fully open, no password, no encription - range is the usual 60 feet.

my neighbor accross the street used to us it - caught her "icon" via my "who's on the network" in windows 7 a few times a few years ago (no, I did not give her permission nor did i say to her "hey i've got this network that you can log into........." we did speak a couple of times prior to me "catching her using my network to go on the net" when i introduced myself and gave her some of my produce (i grow vegitables in my yard - more than i can eat myself).

a few years earlier when i lacked wifi, and only had a hardwired DSL servlice i used to leach on another neighbor's wifi to listen to "radio" (via my wifi Grace brand tabletop radio - which lacked ethernet support - so could only use it via this other neighbor's Open wifi.............that worked for about 4 months, then her son showed up and "closed" that link and my "Radio" sat useless until i bought my own wifi router............at which time i thought to myself "wow it was really nice to be able to use that neighbor's link to the net to use this radio i love, i'll return the favor (not as an ignorance of having an open wifi as that other neighbor, but as a willing act of charity for others who may be like myself prior............in need of a wifi but lacking their own means - finacially or whatever..................just to be nice. i.e. be a good citizen, civic duty.

just last week i carted out another wifi radio (an Ocean Digital - i have two "internet radios") and did an "wifi search" in my residental neighborhood - i counted the networks, there were 35!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of those ONLY 2 others other then mine were "open" and one as a commercial one - laundrymat a block away...........both of them were too weak to support "internet audio radio support" sadly.

seeing 33 of 35 networks all "locked up tighter than a virgin" gave me two images:

1. wow, so little concept of "the common good/citizenship/charity"
2. ATT/Cox sure must be happy to over$$$$ell such capacity (no doubt all the 35 wifi networks work at 1/5 actual support capacity)

a little more charity in my neighborhood would still serve full capacity and give ATT/Cox 20 percent of the revenue they now get and have been getting for 10 yrs or so.

.................

WRT to ISPs - ATT started out ok for me - 20 buck DSL........for a few years, then they started to jack the price up to force me to sign up to Uverse (with their TV crap - cut cable in 99, no interest in that brain dead reality tv garbage - 200 channels of crap - no thanks)............when my bill for DSL became obscene (80 bucks!!!!) i went to Cox - 4 times the speed for 50 bucks for a year - now the year of course is up and the 95 bucks a month for middle of the road (lower middle) osdt promo is what i know it would be.

its ok for now..............but not happy enough for infinity.

i have a plan.

buy 50 buck external antenna

buy 60 buck wifi Access point hardware

learn about firmware and dd-wrt.

and get "free wifi".........................

not a moocher, just think the usual international rate of 20-25 bucks for net access is proper instead of the jacked up by 5 times we are forced to pay due to monopolies.

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i'll need to teach myself how to save money this way, and so will take me a year, but intend to do so.

.........

may start another thread on "free wifi" here it there is any interest.

peace, and thanks to all here for reading and replying in advance.
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