Australian Public Wi-Fi Network

In "iiNet plans massive public Wi-Fi network" (IT Wires, 7 January 2014) Graeme Philipson reports that the Western Australia based telecommunication company will expand the WiFi service it provides in the Adelaide CBD to other states. While Phillipson describes this as a "massive" network, it is likely to be confined to city centres and other locations with high concentrations of potential users. In his book "Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia" (2013), Anthony M. Townsend, describes how non-profit groups provided such access previously.

It is unlikely iiNet will be providing WiFi broadband access throughout suburbs. However, one option iiNet might like to try is to offer its customers an incentive to provide WiFi to their neighbors. Under such a scheme the customer allows the WiFi on the home broadband to be used by registered users. However, such a scheme would still be limited by the availability of unlicensed spectrum for WiFi. Another option would be to provide 4G picocells, as well as WiFi.

iinet Case

Greetings from "Policy Form: Righting the Copyright Imbalance", at the National Library of Australia, in Canberra. After discussing "Safe Harbours" in general, the forum move on to look at the iinet case in detail. This case was over if ISP iiNet Ltd, allowed illegal downloading of films, TV and music. The issue was if iiNet had taken reasonable steps to stop such downloads happening. This case is likely to do more to shape copyright law in Australia than any of the government inquiries under-way.

Anne Flahvin, Special Council, Baker & McKenzie, summarised the decision in the case. However, I couldn't understand the legal details.