[Concept] Buy or sell excess bandwidth using bitcoin.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Imagine a scenario where you park outside someones house and they have software on their router that allows you to send it bitcoins and access the internet using their connection, or even sitting at a cafe you send the p2p isp a coin and youre surfing.

No bank account needed and anyone can sit somewhere earning bitcoins all day just for sharing their wifi with people. I had this idea while sitting at a cafe in the city and they wanted me to register a credit card and give personal details to access a wifi point. Of course I avoided that like the plague

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[Bitcoin Oz]

If nothing else it would advertise bitcoin by broadcasting a page that explains what bitcoin is....

[film2240]

I like this concept a lot.This sounds like a BT FON type service (where 'Foneros' or customers of this service can access other customers internet connections for a fee and then they get access to the connection.).I'd say look up the BT FON (or Fonero) service for more info.Hotspot owners can earn an income.I'd like to be part of this if successful so I can earn BTC for just renting out my internet to paying customers.I think a straightforward app/webpage (you can tell the router to divert people to on the 'guest' network mode where a webpage can be shown that says 'pay xxBTC for a days/weeks/months internet access or so)

My router is rather basic (Asus RT N10,I think) but has the ability to run 2 wi-fi hotspots at once (one for personal use and the 'guest' for the public to use)
If you can install a simple app that lets anyone rent out their internet connection,it'll be a success from the users point of view.When I get the summer off from work,I can contribute more to this concept. I want to make money from internet use.

[P4man]

How  is he going to pay with bitcoins when he isnt online yet?
You'd have to keep the bitcoin port open to everyone, but even then you dont know if he has a full client on his laptop or if he uses some smartphone /web client.

More over, I think the chance of someone finding your hotspot that happens to be a bitcoin user that doesnt happen to have 3G or some other wifi roaming contract, are pretty slim at this point. Dont let me stop you though, but do keep in mind he has to be able to pay...

[Sukrim]

That's kinda similar to the "pay TOR (exit) nodes with BTC" concept, there should be quite a few threads about this around.

[Bitcoin Oz]

How  is he going to pay with bitcoins when he isnt online yet?
You'd have to keep the bitcoin port open to everyone, but even then you dont know if he has a full client on his laptop or if he uses some smartphone /web client.

More over, I think the chance of someone finding your hotspot that happens to be a bitcoin user that doesnt happen to have 3G or some other wifi roaming contract, are pretty slim at this point. Dont let me stop you though, but do keep in mind he has to be able to pay...

Yes that is something to consider...its probably more about advertising bitcoin at this stage akin to changing your ssid to "bitcoin" on your router, but going further by offering a demonstration of actually using it with the selling of bandwidth.

[Bitcoin Oz]

That's kinda similar to the "pay TOR (exit) nodes with BTC" concept, there should be quite a few threads about this around.

Its definitely a similar concept.

[Technomage]

This concept could possibly be revolutionary. I abso-fricking-lutely love it. The open WLAN would of course need to have the commonly used Bitcoin ports open so that the user can pay for it. That's clear.

I strongly support developing something like this, it could become big. If this were truly widespread, you wouldn't have to worry about not having an Internet connection. Anywhere. I'll setup my personal network for this instantly once someone comes up with a working system.

Too bad I'm not a coder but I can certainly help with the design.

[Bitcoin Oz]

This concept could possibly be revolutionary. I abso-fricking-lutely love it. The open WLAN would of course need to have the commonly used Bitcoin ports open so that the user can pay for it but otherwise it's great.

I strongly support developing something like this, it could become big. If this were truly widespread, you wouldn't have to worry about not having an Internet connection. Anywhere.

I am taken with mesh networking but so far it hasnt taken off, I believe because there is no economic incentive. Adding bitcoin does this in spades. One might also add  piratebox http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox for local secure file sharing and provide the same economic incentives. Think sneakernet on steroids.

[Technomage]

I was thinking that this would also be brilliant with mobile laptops and tablets with 3G/4G. You could tell the software that you're in this coffeehouse for 30 minutes, so customers can only pay for the time that I'm still going to be at that location (and running the software). We have really fast and cheap mobile connections here in Finland so I could share a 5 mbps mobile connection via WLAN on the move, no problem.

It wouldn't make much sense to share it literally on the move but if you're going to be stuck for a while at an airport, train station, restaurant, coffeehouse or something, it does make sense.

I just realized that you could do this when bus traveling. 30 minute bus travel and I could provide a 5 mbps connection to everyone in the bus, while still leaving 5 mbps for me. And this is just with the 3G, we already have 4G mobile connections in Finland which are way faster.

[SgtSpike]

1)  This likely violates the ToS of any residential internet service.
1b)  People could browse naughty areas of the internet, and YOU would be the one to get in trouble for it.
2)  It's largely pointless considering the small number of people who use Bitcoins.  Like P4man said, the likelihood of someone who uses Bitcoins is walking in your neighborhood looking for internet access is incredibly slim.  Of course, if Bitcoin got big, then I could see it as a viable option, as long as 1) and 1b) can be worked out.
3)  I like the idea of simply changing your SSID to show "Bitcoins" or "UseBitcoins" or "ISupportBitcoins" or something else to that effect.  Kind of free advertising for Bitcoin.

[rjk]

3)  I like the idea of simply changing your SSID to show "Bitcoins" or "UseBitcoins" or "ISupportBitcoins" or something else to that effect.  Kind of free advertising for Bitcoin.

Yes, get creative, like these folks:

[Technomage]

1)  This likely violates the ToS of any residential internet service.

I believe it can be done in a way that it's not very likely that you'll get caught. Especially if the bandwidth usage from that is not massive. I have a 100mbps connection which is fairly common here and no one would care if I share 10mbps. There are no quotas or limits either. Using some kind of encryption/VPN should be explored also for increased security.

1b)  People could browse naughty areas of the internet, and YOU would be the one to get in trouble for it.

Finnish ISP's commonly use what is called DNS filtering to block these sites. Other than that, the same concerns go for point 1) which can be countered by features that encrypt the traffic.

2)  It's largely pointless considering the small number of people who use Bitcoins.  Like P4man said, the likelihood of someone who uses Bitcoins is walking in your neighborhood looking for internet access is incredibly slim.  Of course, if Bitcoin got big, then I could see it as a viable option, as long as 1) and 1b) can be worked out.

This point is just stupid. The concept we're talking here is revolutionary, it's the kind of thing that would attract people to learn about Bitcoin even if they don't know anything about it in advance. In Europe it's a very common problem that when you travel to another European country, using your local 3G is super expensive and buying a 3G package from there is a pain in the ass. There is no wlan available everywhere either and if there is, it's often not free and requires credit card information. This has the potential to change everything.

3)  I like the idea of simply changing your SSID to show "Bitcoins" or "UseBitcoins" or "ISupportBitcoins" or something else to that effect.  Kind of free advertising for Bitcoin.

This is something that I don't think has any effect because most people don't even know what Bitcoin is, telling people that "I like Bitcoin" in this way means nothing and it's not going to lead to people finding out. Renting your connection with bitcoins however is something that could spread like wild fire and start getting attention. An open wlan with a login page having bitcoin payment instructions would in itself be huge.

Of course it is smart to think about how ISP's would respond to this, that's why I mentioned exploring VPN possibilities.

[wareen]

You could also accept mining shares as payment for people who don't have Bitcoins. Just give short instructions on how to download and setup a mining software and off you go. Maybe rate-limit the connection according to the clients hashrate or something...

Wouldn't work for smartphone clients of course and you would hardly be making any money, but as a Bitcoin promotion it would be nice

[Sukrim]

You could even offer WebGL/JavaScript miners - once a share is mined, they get access to the network and can submit a transaction for more funds on their account for bandwidth or just keep mining, if they have fast hardware.

[kr105]

3)  I like the idea of simply changing your SSID to show "Bitcoins" or "UseBitcoins" or "ISupportBitcoins" or something else to that effect.  Kind of free advertising for Bitcoin.

Yes, get creative, like these folks:

"Use this one mom" LMAO!

[teflone]

This has been talked about before.. I also think this would be amazing to do with bitcoin..

But more than half the work is done for you..

dd-wrt, with Chilispot, or Freeradius is the programs your looking for..  Charge a small fee for access to your internet over wifi. 

So far I see bitcoin being far superior to paypal for these purposes..

[Bitcoin Oz]

I found another project on here that this could be perfect for https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2312.0 BtcFN (Bitcoin over Freenet) in which the entire blockchain is stored on freenet. Maybe instead of the normal internet it could be used to incentivise the use of freenet type services which then makes it a whole lot faster. If that took off you wouldnt need the normal internet at all for using bitcoin and a lot of sites are mirrored on freenet anyway.

[Explodicle]

This has been talked about before.. I also think this would be amazing to do with bitcoin..

But more than half the work is done for you..

dd-wrt, with Chilispot, or Freeradius is the programs your looking for..  Charge a small fee for access to your internet over wifi. 

So far I see bitcoin being far superior to paypal for these purposes..

In case anyone would like to read a recent discussion on the topic:
[IDEA] plugin for dd-wrt that allows selling internet connection to neighbors

I'd like to reiterate the suggestion for "offline" transactions like with the BCCAPI, that would be pretty cool.

[Bitcoin Oz]

This has been talked about before.. I also think this would be amazing to do with bitcoin..

But more than half the work is done for you..

dd-wrt, with Chilispot, or Freeradius is the programs your looking for..  Charge a small fee for access to your internet over wifi. 

So far I see bitcoin being far superior to paypal for these purposes..

In case anyone would like to read a recent discussion on the topic:
[IDEA] plugin for dd-wrt that allows selling internet connection to neighbors

I'd like to reiterate the suggestion for "offline" transactions like with the BCCAPI, that would be pretty cool.

+10

Bitcoin over sneakernet ftw.