Perils in the Common Good Wireless Commons

An increasing number of households own more than one computer and use WLANs to network and access the Internet through a single DSL or cable modem connection. In parallel to these private WLANs owned and used by companies and individuals, public WLANs are emerging, providing wireless Internet access in public places such as airports, hotels, cafes, libraries, malls, convention centers, and hospitals. Today, there are tens of thousands of public hotspots (www.publicinternetproject.org) in the U.S. alone. Several entrepreneurial organizations have embarked on various approaches to cluster these private and public WLANs to create pervasive wireless broadband networks (WBNs) that can be citywide or even nationwide [10]. Among them, many not-for-profit initiatives have evolved into community-oriented wireless commons, in which participants share their hotspots with others. As wireless access needs increase with the rapid proliferation of mobile handheld computing devices, wireless commons are expected to play an indispensable role for communications and commerce in coming years. Thus it becomes important to understand: How do these wireless commons create common good? How can the participants who consume the freely available