On Tue, 14 May 2013, Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
It sounds like quite a nice idea, except.. who do you think would use it? I dare say anyone who wants those things (TED talks, Linux distros) and lives in Melbourne would already have internet access themselves.
Internode's cheapest plan has a 30G per month quota. Bigpond has one with a 5G quota. People who use only 3G net access (as my parents did until recently) can have a quota as small as 1G per month or less. If I was able to keep my data use below the 6G from my Kogan phone and if I didn't do any server stuff at home then I could cancel my ADSL connection and save a reasonable amount of money.
Whereas someone who wants those things but lives outside Melbourne probably wouldn't travel to the city just to sit on the pavement for hours copying files until their battery goes flat.
Yes sitting on the pavement for hours wouldn't be fun. Fortunately in the CBD there's lots of public bench seating, cafes, and other places to sit. So we only need to get a suitable Wifi range to cover seating.
If Lindsay or someone was going to make the long trip to the CBD, they could ask if they can meet up with someone at lunch to pick up files on a USB key.
As has been demonstrated on this list some people will be inclined to say "just buy mail-order from the US". Also there is the occasional situation where someone needs a copy of a Linux distribution after hours. Some years ago one of my clients spent from 6PM to 8PM trying to get a copy of a Linux distribution to recover a server, after he failed to do that I rebuilt the system as a Debian server.
Or, you could just NOT rent the office and run the PC, and take the money you save and use it to post free USB keys out to anyone who asks. I dare say the hundreds of dollars saved in electricity costs alone would cover media and postage costs for 100% of requests per year.
I never said anything about renting an office. When there's some unused space in the office of an organisation that owes me a favor... http://yourchoice.vic.gov.au/ According to the above URL small-business GST-inclusive energy prices are around $0.25 per kWh. http://doc.coker.com.au/environment/computer-power-use/ According to my tests a Celeron with 3 IDE disks draws 58W when relatively idle (IE doing nothing but drives spinning). The same system took 45W with only a single disk, so with a RAID-1 array it would be about 53W. That means every year it would use 0.052*24*365.25 == 455.8kWh and at a rate of $0.25 per kWh that means about $114 in electricity. $114 might cover all the requests that people make, but I doubt it would cover all the people who want such data. Also when running such a system I could give accounts to anyone who can be trusted to obey copyright law and let them share whatever seems to be of interest.
Of course I could have misunderstood the purpose. Were you thinking you would pick up random passers by who saw a wifi network pop up called "Free Linux Distros" on their phone, and they thought "why yes, I'll download the entire Ubuntu LTS repository onto my Nokia while I wait for this nightbus!" (Because the average interval between trams isn't long enough to grab that much data)
I don't expect that people would download things without planning, few people even try to connect to a random Wifi AP. However one member of this list once told me an anecdote about someone who parked in front of his house for hours to download his MP3 collection, so it apparently does happen. But I think that if people knew that they could easily get something large and useful without using their quota (one of many examples is LCA talk videos) then it seems likely to get some use.
Don't let me stop you though, but I'm not really sure it's worth your time?
Sometimes you don't know if something's going to work out unless you do it. I had people tell me that Linux would never take off and I shouldn't waste my time on it. Then I had people say the same thing about SE Linux (with some conspiracy theories thrown in). Also I'd have never thought that GeoCaching or Hacker Spaces would be viable concepts until I saw them working. http://melbourne.wireless.org.au/ There's even Melbourne Wireless which has some conceptual similarities to what I'm suggesting. They have been around for years so they seem to be successful. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/