UK says bye bye to public Wi-Fi

Downloading high-def movies over public Wi-Fi is hardly going to be a reality.

There's little argument that copyright legislation courts controversy, but the UK government seems to be heading on a collision course with trouble by not exempting universities, libraries and small businesses with unsecured Wi-Fi networks from its the Digital Economy Bill copyright infringement legislation.

While a growing number of countries -such as New Zealand - are passing similar laws to combat copyright infringement, most have dealt with the thorny issue of open public Wi-Fi networks by classifying businesses and public institutions as ISPs, making them exempt from prosecution.

Indications are however that this won't be the case in the UK where organisations with public Wi-Fi networks will find themselves exposed to the same copyright infringement penalties as individual citizens, including internet disconnection and steep fines.

This raises serious questions about the viability of enforcing copyright infringement. To argue that businesses and institutions should be penalised for copyright infringing content on their networks is bizarre, as are arguments that exempting them from copyright infringement penalties will led to public pockets of piracy.

In the vast majority of cases, public Wi-Fi networks tend to involve shared access to a 2Mbps DSL line, which makes downloading a movie over a quick latte pretty ludicrous.

Although larger businesses and organisations with dedicated IT teams could choose to implement network management policies, their smaller and less ITsavvy counterparts (for whom Wi-Fi is often an important marketing tool) will find it virtually impossible to operate open Wi-Fi networks without being exposed to prosecution.

The UK public is the unfortunate looser thanks to this legislative short sightedness and the death of freely available public Wi-Fi in the UK is almost guaranteed.