Free things are abused. Non-homeless people will swamp a free network with video streaming. Bandwidth limiting would need implemented, which make make the network useless for VoIP or streaming. But sure, if it's possible, I would love me some free internet!
> Non-homeless people will swamp a free network with video streaming.
Block YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram and Reddit's video service, plus Facebook.
Magically, 90% of the issues there resolve themselves very quickly.
> Bandwidth limiting would need implemented, which make make the network useless for VoIP or streaming.
Not necessarily. You could implement a fast-lane that only allowed access to a few sites, like Google Voice, to allow VoIP for those who really needed it.
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The biggest concern with this would be the privacy implications it could have. Especially considering that the homeless are less likely to be in-the-know with infosec, it seems like an incredibly quick way to have a lot of personal information stolen quite quickly.
YouTube is a vital source of information on so many things; outright blocking it seems cruel. I think it'd be preferable to find some way of having per-person accounts with limits.
I assume the capacity would be such that at least the expected number of people would be able to use the internet normally as if it were no different to something they were paying for. This isn't homeless-only free wifi, this is everyone-in-range free wifi.
How is this any different from any other deployment of wireless service to a given population? It's just the taxpayers pay the bill.
Or are you suggesting that some users are going to deploy multiple clients to hoard the bandwidth? That seems like a solvable problem.
Urban areas should just give wifi internet access away though, it's not terribly costly.
Even the tiny town of Pescadero, CA has free high-speed wifi internet provided by San Mateo county.