On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> Mike: I think Adam was referring to the need for a carrier license. He >may<
> have been mistaken here, though. The trip-wire to becoming a carrier (one of
> them, anyway) is an "external" link greater than 500 metres in length...
> this would make for fun discussion, "but the diameter of the node is less
> than 500 metres".
Richard,
>From the ACA website (http://www.aca.gov.au/licence/index.htm):
"A carrier is an owner of network units used to supply carriage services
to the public. In summary, network units are line links exceeding 500
metres, or designated radiocommunications links, such as mobile service
base stations, or satellite based facilities."
Wireless nodes fall under 'designated radiocommunications links' not 'line
links exceeding 500m'.
> The "carrier" definition may also be sidestepped if the wireless LAN were a
> co-operative model: if I am a co-owner of the network, my connection to that
> network doesn't constitute an external link.
You cannot carry third-party data across a network link without a carrier
licence.
Consider the simplest such user network:
A - B - C(egress)
where A cannot get to C without traversing B. As soon as this happens,
user B is carrying third-party data (user A's) and thus requires a carrier
licence.
Office-based wireless LANs get around this because they do not carry
third-party data; the entire network fabric is owned by the 'company' and
all users belong to the 'company'.
You could potentially form a co-operative where all the network was owned
by the co-operative; but we've run this by the ACA already and they said
'no' :P
Regards,
Saliya
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:05 EST