Check this article out. I have made comments in this article in bold.

“When I first heard about wireless Internet service, I was a little bit skeptical. My son was begging me to get it. He thought the idea of wireless broadband Internet was so cool. You see, he is somewhat of a techno-Utopian. Having grown up with the Web, he has seen firsthand how much information is available and how easy communication is between different people. He writes two blogs and reads several more, talks to his friends online, And basically spend every spare moment surfing the web.

His argument for wireless Internet service is pretty ideological. You see, a few months ago we were going through hard times. One of the first things that we had to cut was Internet broadband service.(In reality this should be one of the last things you cut today. The Internet is really your access to the outside world today. With the Internet you can get a job and open a small money making business with almost no money investment. This may help you get out of your hard times especially financial hard times.) We tried to use Internet dial up for awhile, but it was so unreliable that it didn’t seem worth the 10 dollars a month.(In most cases this is true. When you realize in some areas you can add for just a little more than the 10 dollars currently being spent.) What I didn’t know at the time was that my neighbor had wireless Internet services. She had made them free for anyone to use, not bothering to set up wireless Internet security. Whether or not she did this intentionally, I will never know, but my son set it up so that we could use her Internet. (I don’t think so. She just didn’t know it. I am sure no one wanted to ask either.)

Basically, she didn’t really lose anything in the deal.(Rationalization?) Unless you are downloading or uploading massive amounts of data, you are rarely ever using your maximum bandwidth. Providing free wireless Internet service to anyone who might be passing by, looking for a link, does nothing bad to you.(Really?? How about compromising your computers on your LAN!) What it does do is help to provide more coverage in your area.(Wow! What a novel concept!) If enough people are willing to plug in wireless Internet service without protecting it with a password, everywhere will be wired. Soon, anyone with a laptop will be able to access the Web from anywhere in the world. I can’t figure out why this is such an important goal, but to my son it is of paramount importance.

Nonetheless, I can’t agree to get wireless Internet service. You see, I simply don’t trust it.(Whew!) I don’t want strangers able to log into my Internet service provider anytime they want.(But you just said above that your neighbor’s Internet open for your use was a good idea and that it wasn’t hurting anything.) I don’t know enough about computers to know if my Internet connection is secure, and I’m not quite willing to take my son’s word for it. For the time being, our cable modem works just fine, thank you very much. We will let someone else provide Internet service for the masses.”

BHO Technologists - Computing Consulting