The Impact of Security Issues on Willingness-to-Share in Community Wireless Networks

Several business models have been proposed to create "wireless cities", municipalities with complete wireless connectivity throughout. These business models are for-profit, non-profit, or public-private enterprises, but none has proven to be completely successful. Community wireless networks, wherein members of the community provide the wireless infrastructure, are one possible solution to this problem. For this type of model to succeed, however, end-users must have confidence in the security of the wireless infrastructure.168 residents of a U.S. West Coast city responded to an on-line survey asking them their attitudes about networks, security, and willingness to "share" their home wireless computer network. A surprisingly large number were willing to share their network for no compensation. An even larger number of residents would be willing to share their networks for some type of compensation. This result bodes well for this mode if communities are willing to compensate their residents and secure their networks.