Hey everyone,

NZWireless has been left to die as of late, this has been due to lack of interest, lack of time and the fact that I'm in the UK at the moment. I will be returning to NZ soon and would like to revive NZWireless but take it in a new direction.

We didn't have much success with trying to contect everyone together via wireless and build our own big wireless network. I don't think wireless could support this very well, at least not on the scale we were aiming for.

So I want to put an idea out there that we try and make NZWireless a bunch of hotspots that anyone can connect to and use the net. NZW would setup a RADIUS server and hot spot owners would setup something like nocat to stop unauthorized access.

Pros:
Free net for everyone
Using RADIUS/nocat would allow us to block any abusers.

Cons:
Net access still isn't cheap (maybe limit users to 128kbit and 200MB per month or something to discourge leeching).

I can't think of any more pros/cons at the moment. This service would be mainly for checking email, IM, IRC and light surfing.

What are everyone's thoughts? Does anyone still read this forum?

The main reason for the rethink is because I've been using quite a few hotspots in the UK and companies like BT are charging £5 per hour for access, which is absolutely crazy. I've also been looking at doing cool things with VOIP like using wifi VOIP phones, which would benefit from free access points.