[MLB-WIRELESS] Melbournes Broadband Enquiry Submission

[Clae]

At 3:27 PM +1000 22/5/02, Steven Haigh wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Craig Mead" <craig.mead at pagesmith.com.au>
>To: "melbwireless" <melbwireless at wireless.org.au>
>Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:05 PM
>Subject: [MLB-WIRELESS] Melbournes Broadband Enquiry Submission
>
>>  To start, I was just wondering who was working on this submission. I had a
>>  look @ http://www.wireless.org.au/wiki/?WGInquiry

I set up the original WG page, and composed most of the points there. 
The working group consists of myself, Barry Park, Jeremy Lunn, and 
recently Dwayne Jones-Evans.  The notes page linking off it has been 
contributed to by many of our members.  Unfortunately, I have been 
out of the loop with this project due to illness lately, so I have 
not been able to follow up on the action plan on the WG page.

>Can you please clarify who the "team" was and with
>  > what people from what states you "liased" with in the writing of this
>>  submission?

The submission listed on our media page is the creation of Steven 
Haigh, President of Melbourne Wireless.
I assume that Steve's submission was largely  based on the work of the WG.

>  > Another point in your task list was "Submit draft to membership X days
>>  before due date."

You are correct in stating that this and many other points on the 
action plan were not followed up on.
Owing to the time constraints, Steve, as President, has created a 
submission on behalf of Melbwireless.  Steve, feel free to pick me up 
if I'm going astray so far.

>  > "No access fee can be charged to any members"

The model rules of association from consumer affairs victoria are not 
compulsory.  LUV -Linux Users of Victoria for example, do not charge 
a membership fee.

However I concur with Steve's point, that as we are discussing it at 
the moment, membership of the association, and network access will be 
two seperate things, if legislation allows.

>  > Why does it seem to me that the required membership fee is going to be
>>  hidden under  the "manufacturing cost of the membership card"? You are
>aware
>>  that as an association you are required to have open books to members and
>>  government?

Yes, painfully aware thankyou.

>If you disguise the membership fee under the card, you will be
>>  in quite serious trouble with the governement, if you don't disguise the
>>  fee, members will realise they ARE actually paying a membership fee,
>>  something that as you stated above, Melbourne Wireless WOULD NOT do.

IF there is a membership fee, it is to cover costs.  There is no 
suggestion about "hiding" that fee.  The quote above is about how 
large to make the fee to cover those costs - which is still under 
discussion.  As Steve keeps pointing out, none of this has been 
finalised, so there's no need to build conspiracy theories by quoting 
things out of context.

>Yes, open books is not a problem... this is our policy from the start and is
>currently in place. members are paying a membership fee to join the
>association - not to access the network. Any member of the public will be
>able to access the network without paying a membership fee.

Assuming legislation allows.

>  > "To link this network to the Internet to allow people to access this
>service
>>  at no charge or at minimal cost."
>>
>>  Yet again, this is stating you are in oposition to ISP's, but we wanna do
>  > what IPS's pay your $10,000/year to do, for nothing.

>Not really. We are currently researching options available to us at this
>time to allow full, legal operation for Melbourne Wireless as an Association
>and not need to spend members finances on things like carrier licenses.

Like Steve says, it's all under research at the moment.

Sincerely,
-- 
David Clae Gason
Secretary, Melbourne Digital and Wireless
mailto:secretary at wireless.org.au
http://wireless.org.au

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