Legality over sharing networks.

Swordfish · 2 May 2013 at 12:35

Looking for a bit of clarification here on the legality of two business's sharing one internet connection.

I had a call today to go and setup a wireless network for a small local business and on arrival I was asked to configure an access point to be connected to the wireless network from a different business in the same general area. The buildings are not physically connected but are fairly close together. I refused the job on the basis that the internet was provided (by BT) to one business only and was then told that the two business are owned by the same owner yet are completely different in what they do (one is a sun tan salon and the other is a general food store).

I did not do the job and the owner did give me a bit of a hard time as I was leaving but I am convinced that to do what he wanted would be in violation of the terms he signed up with BT.

Am I right ?

DJMK4 · 2 May 2013 at 12:48

It maybe a grey area, as technically yes they should have two seperate circuits, but then most people can create more than one wireless LAN if they wanted too anyway, how would BT know unless they were using an excessive amount of bandwidth over what one normal business would normally use, so much that BT noticed this?

They are hardly going to come round with a WiFi scanner

Personally if it were me though, I would use two ADSL links, one in each site, ADSL is hardly a bank breaker in terms of costs these days. How close are these buildings? if it was next door then I would say do it, four or five doors away? hmmm, perhaps not as it will most likely NOT be reliable wifi unless you either used some sort of direct line of sight wifi dish or something !!OR!! run Ethernet between the two and had access points in both buildings...

drizzy · 2 May 2013 at 14:14

Violation of terms with BT != breaking the law - not sure why you wouldn't just do it?

If he's aware of that and still wants to proceed it's on his own head?

Swordfish · 2 May 2013 at 15:58

drizzy said:
Violation of terms with BT != breaking the law - not sure why you wouldn't just do it?

If he's aware of that and still wants to proceed it's on his own head?

Things is if I do them I'm at fault not the BT owner as he could simply he did not know and I said it was OK.

I was just wondering if it did break the terms of his contract or not?

tom_e · 2 May 2013 at 16:12

Swordfish said:
Things is if I do them I'm at fault not the BT owner as he could simply he did not know and I said it was OK.

I was just wondering if it did break the terms of his contract or not?

But BT aren't going to come chasing you as it's his terms that have been broken, you've got nothing to do with it.

p1RATE · 2 May 2013 at 16:18

So a business owner asked you to set up the internet connection for his two offices and this seamed dodgy to you??

I dont see how the different operations of his company would be of any concern to you. im not surprised they gave you stick on the way out

DJMK4 · 2 May 2013 at 16:28

How are you going to address the Wifi performance issue you will get if you went ahead with it?

Westyfield2 · 2 May 2013 at 16:41

I wouldn't have any issues doing it, but I also wouldn't use regular WiFi Aps for the job.
I'd advise them that they probably don't want to be using a single ADSL link for a business, and I'd mention that running two businesses off of it is obviously going to increase the bandwidth and might push them over the usage allowance.

aln · 2 May 2013 at 22:19

Like most people, I honestly don't see how this is any of your business. You do not have an agreement with BT, thus how exactly would you be liable? You probably should have just let them know there was a potential licensing problem, then done the work when asked to anyway.

You only really need to concern yourself when you know you're being asked to do something thats probably illegal, such as facilitating the sale of medical records or ddosing your competitor, and even then the brunt force of the law will generally fall of the people telling you to do this.

Swordfish · 2 May 2013 at 22:47

aln said:
Like most people, I honestly don't see how this is any of your business. You do not have an agreement with BT, thus how exactly would you be liable? You probably should have just let them know there was a potential licensing problem, then done the work when asked to anyway.

You only really need to concern yourself when you know you're being asked to do something thats probably illegal, such as facilitating the sale of medical records or ddosing your competitor, and even then the brunt force of the law will generally fall of the people telling you to do this.

Not really. If you do something illegal you face the punishment !

p1RATE said:
So a business owner asked you to set up the internet connection for his two offices and this seamed dodgy to you??

No, I was asked to make it possible that one company can share the internet supplied to another. It makes no difference who owns the company at all. I have checked with a friend who works with BT and have had it confirmed that doing so would be against the terms of the agreement for the internet supply. Technically BT would class it as theft.

In the end I'm glad I did not do it.

Thanks for the helpful replies.

panyan · 2 May 2013 at 22:54

Swordfish said:
Looking for a bit of clarification here on the legality of two business's sharing one internet connection.

I had a call today to go and setup a wireless network for a small local business and on arrival I was asked to configure an access point to be connected to the wireless network from a different business in the same general area. The buildings are not physically connected but are fairly close together. I refused the job on the basis that the internet was provided (by BT) to one business only and was then told that the two business are owned by the same owner yet are completely different in what they do (one is a sun tan salon and the other is a general food store).

I did not do the job and the owner did give me a bit of a hard time as I was leaving but I am convinced that to do what he wanted would be in violation of the terms he signed up with BT.

Am I right ?

I wouldnt have done it either, It would obviously be against the ToS.

If the owner didnt want to spend the money putting in another line then I reckon he was giving the OP next to nothing anyway so why put yourself in potential harms way for nothing?

edscdk · 2 May 2013 at 22:57

why is it your concern... type in the password and take their money! you jsut lost a customer...

d_brennen · 2 May 2013 at 23:04

ToS isn't law. I still wouldn't have done it though, as it sounds like a headache waiting to happen

Swordfish · 3 May 2013 at 07:49

d_brennen said:
ToS isn't law. I still wouldn't have done it though, as it sounds like a headache waiting to happen

Ture.

edscdk said:
why is it your concern... type in the password and take their money! you jsut lost a customer...

Not worried about that at all.

I've been thinking about this a bit now and what makes an internet supply any different from a gas or electricity supply. It's a utility supplied and paid for one site only. You cant share your electricity/gas with your neighbour etc.

Imy · 3 May 2013 at 11:10

I would've just given them the relevant warnings/advice about what they're trying to do and if they still wanted it doing then I would have done it.

There's nothing illegal about what they've asked you to do by the sounds of it. Their contract with BT is none of your concern.

aln · 3 May 2013 at 11:21

Swordfish said:
Not really. If you do something illegal you face the punishment !

I never said you wouldn't, I said they'd come down harder on the guy whos calling the shots. To elaborate, this removes the incentive for them to ask you to do such things, where as you refusing to do this current work smacks of someone taking a college level ethics class way too seriously.

Swordfish said:
I've been thinking about this a bit now and what makes an internet supply any different from a gas or electricity supply. It's a utility supplied and paid for one site only. You cant share your electricity/gas with your neighbour etc.

You'll find if I extend a pipe / wires into my neighbours property, we'd have no problems sharing gas or electricity supply, and whilst this may be against the TOS, in reality it's not going to make a great deal of difference in a metered environment. I'd happily do the same with an Internet connection.

If you want to take a moral stance, why aren't you against the practice of telling people what they can and cannot do with what they've paid for?

Jokester · 3 May 2013 at 12:55

Only his business has a contract with BT. BT had zero comeback with you if they had found out about it.

No laws were being broken.

AtreuS · 3 May 2013 at 15:12

If he is with BT he will have access to BT-FON on his contract anyway so just set the second business up on any local BT router with the FON log in? :confused: