[MLB-WIRELESS] Legal Assistance & group membership.

[Adrian Close]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Steven Haigh wrote:

> Does anyone on the list know of a good lawyer or solicitor that would be
> willing to help us on some legal areas regarding Melbourne: Digital and
> Wireless? Preferably that are familiar with the ACA rules & regs, and also
> on non-profit organisations...

I would recommend having a chat to Kimberley Heitman (web site at
http://www.kheitman.com/).  He's a really nice guy and knows his stuff,
both legal and technical.  He's also on the board of EFA and seems pretty
passionate about the Internet in Australia.  I don't know that he'll work
for free, but I'm sure he'll talk to you without charging by the second.

I already brought up some of these wireless networking regulatory issues
with him a little while back and he had some good suggestions.  I'm not
100% sure of my facts, but what I seem to remember is this:

Idea #1:  Form a non-profit association and continue on as we have been.
The Telecommunications Act, as I understand it, provides for use of
non-carriage services (e.g. unlicenced 2.4GHz 802.11) for transit within a
company or "circle".  Selling transit to third parties would be a problem
under this arrangement, I think.

Idea #2:  Form a company (presumably non-profit) and get a carrier
licence.  $10k/year or thereabouts, which seems like a lot, but not when
you split it up.  That's only 100 people at $100/year, for example.

Idea #3:  Ask a nice, existing carrier who may be struggling somewhat (and
there are a few of those) if we can please operate under their banner and
borrow their carrier licence...

Personally I think I'd vote for option #1, assuming the legalities work
out, but having a carrier licence does have a certain charm, as it means
you can do things like dig up roads to lay fibre, for example.

Having any sort of company requires more administrative work than probably
any of us want to do, not to mention the book-keeping, but I don't think
there's a way around it.  APANA seem to manage OK.  It just means we get
to have an AGM.

Anyway, talk to Kim.

Adrian Close			email:	adrian at close.wattle.id.au
1 Old Gippsland Rd.		web:	http://www.close.wattle.id.au/~adrian
Lilydale, VIC, 3140, Australia	mobile:	+61 412 385 201

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