What I reckon - VPNs

Here's a slightly edited version of a post I made to the Melbourne Wireless mailing list. Some Melbourne Wireless members object to the use of VPN tunnelling to link unconnected wireless network clusters together across the Internet. This is my response:

Imagine this situation - an access point at point A and an access point at point B. Points A and B are a very long distance from each other. If a person with a wireless device at point A can connect to a person with a wireless device at point B, do the two people care *how* points A and B are linked? Would the two people think that they were connected to a wired network? Does it matter if the link between point A and point B is purely wireless or in some part comprises an Internet tunnel? The reason why you build a network is ultimately for it's usefulness to the end users. A collection of unconnected node clusters is far less useful than if all those clusters are interconnected.

The boast "our network is entirely wireless" is only impressive to a certain number of engineers and other geek-types. The boast "our network allows you to connect from any point in our city to any other point, for free" is far more interesting to the wider population.

I think the major objection to Internet tunnelling is that it makes us dependant on the telcos, and that our Community Wireless Network should be about sticking it up the telcos. To that I say, by using their bandwidth and not paying any extra for it, we effectively *are* sticking it up the telcos. :) And if they decide they don't like what we're doing and they put a stop to it, we will be no worse off than our present situation.

I believe the decision about where and how links are made is purely up to each individual node-owner. If you don't like Internet tunnelling, no one's forcing you to use it.