[cthyon]

Really cool idea. Does anyone know about the legality of sharing internet through meshes as referenced in the article, "RHI pays its internet subscription to Brooklyn Fiber, and redistributes this coverage for free to a dozen parts of Red Hook." ? Or whether ISPs would be able to shutdown mesh networks for sharing internet subscription like this?

[justizin]

Brooklyn Fiber is a commercial provider, so buying access from someone like them is basically how an ISP becomes an ISP.

If you were sharing your Cable or DSL, you might run into issues with your contract.

In both cases you would have to be prepared to handle abuse complaints, or your IP space would likely just get blocked from large parts of the internet, or at least major services.

For instance, the administrator of an office network may receive DMCA complaints about employees downloading movies or somesuch. If these continue, at some point your internet provider will terminate your connection. The same would be a concern for anonymous internet sharing.

[wyldfire]

How different is this from backbone peering?

It's certainly "legal" and RHI would only need worry about whether it's permitted as a part of their service. Presumably it is permitted, but certainly not all providers would allow it. Baked into the cost of the service no doubt.