Yet an other bad news from Brazil

[Renk]

On January 27 , Anatel (Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency), the regulatory agency responsible for regulating, executing and supervising the telecommunications sector, seized equipment and fined an internet user R$ 3,000 (approximately $ 1,810 USD) for sharing his wifi connection with neighbors in the city of Teresina, Piauí state (Northeast of Brazil). [GV note: one of the poorest states in Brazil.]

"Reason": The wifi sharer acted as a ISP, without any autorisation.

Brazil: Criminalization of Sharing Internet via Wifi · Global Voices

See also (in brazilian language):

ANATEL multa compartilhamento de rede sem fio | Trezentos
A Anatel, a surra nos consumidores e a defesa dos direitos corporativos

[SealLion]

According to the article, it states:

...cting as an internet service provider without proper authorization from the Agency.

How pathetic.

I realize that people in Brazil are not the richest of all like some of the super-rich like the Queen of England or the Duchess of York or hell, why not even throw in a couple of the Saudi princes for that matter.

Brazil is noted for not being a first world country. I believe that it is considered a second world country. If I'm wrong, let me know here b/c I'm more less considering it on the basis of relationships that are competitive, somewhat ideological and at times hostile such as is the case between Venezuela and the USA, for example. This may also includes GNP indices as well as birthrates, and some levels of economic dependencies on more advanced countries.

So having said all of that, I'll try to tie it in with my explanation here.
The agency in Brazil (ANATEL) that's being noted in the article apparently is a regulatory agency. Protecting, regulating, and governing the ISP's inside Brazil.

The basis of any one company is to make money as well as to maintain it's business relationships with other competitors. Whether those competitors are within it's national boundaries or outside of it. I don't know how big or small some of ANATEL's regulated ISPs are but let's just assume that they are like other companies. They want to expand and grow so that they can keep the coin they make and still be in a position to make more coin that shines even brighter.

More evidence that ANATEL is there to protect the abusive profits of operators and not the proper functioning of the Internet

That quote is from the link you gave. So it makes all the more sense. And I didn't even read that far yet until afterwards. Ha!!

It isn't absurd to think or believe that there are many covert arrangements between companies and even with some regulatory agencies, where-ever they be, to be protective of their turf.

I don't know on what level such covert arrangements might exist between the parties involved in Brazil, but let's just assume they are on a mid to low level arrangement. That sounds reasonable.

It shouldn't be a surprise that some ISP in Brazil felt it was losing money and hence after becoming aware of it, made the appropriate complaint to ANATEL.
Money of course, or the losing of it, would have been the motivating factor.

Of course in consideration of the poverty level in that part of Brazil (according to the article, that is), many people there probably don't have ready access to the internet and were more or less using the person's wifi access point on the basis of accessibility to the internet and information sharing. Much like the article states.

The service might be poor, again as per the article, but it might also demonstrate a point of competitiveness of one ISP against another that might have better service regardless of price issues.

At least thats how I would expand some of the reason for this happening.

There are other and less visible reasons that I can see for ANATEL's behavior in this but I wont' go that far.
But I'll leave you a morsel to give you an idea of other involvements of ANATELs behaviour.

.....ANATEL's attempt [pt] to monitor phone calls of Brazilians without the need for a warrant.....

I've said enough.

[anon]

acting as an internet service provider without proper authorization from the Agency.

That's a bit of a crap excuse, isn't it? You can hardly say someone with an open router is acting as an ISP. That'd be like saying I'm acting as a reserve bank without proper authorization just because I borrowed a friend some money. At most, his (real) provider should suspend his service for breaking the ToS (if what he did isn't allowed) and not make such a fuss out of it.

Personally, I applaud what the guy was doing. As full of crap as it may appear to be sometimes, the Internet is a very powerful and helpful resource everyone should be able to access. And he was making that possible.

[SealLion]

Well since the agency did make a fuss over it, now they got themselves front page coverage over it. Is this good for the agency??
I have no clue how they see it now, but I'm pretty sure that someone, somewhere on the board of directors is wondering the same thing. Now what about the ISP that is probably involved. Might be having the same ideas re: media coverage. Any kind of media coverage that is negative in some way is bad publicity for that same company.
No public agency or company want's bad publicity. Pretty soon, you might see people writing to their respective legislative members. And I hope they do because it needs to be done. I agree that it is pretty far-fetched for some agency to act as some Hee-Man and spank some poor guy who's sharing his internet services with some of his friends, neighbors, and so forth.
People who are less well-off have tendencies to do that. It's common behavior throughout the world for people in less fortunate regions of the world to share with neighbors, family, extended-families, friends, and so forth. Look at any quarter of the world and you'll see such behavior. In small African communities you see this sort of thing all the time. In small Latin American communities, you'll see it as well where there is a larger proportion of less developed and increased poverty.
So apparently, in this part of Brazil, the same thing was happening. It shouldn't be a surprise; however, I'm kind of surprised in reading that this agency hadn't thought of that. But then again, as I've stated above, one of the reasons that it may have occurred is to protect the bottom line.

[slikrapid]

seized equipment and fined an internet user R$ 3,000 (approximately $ 1,810 USD) for sharing his wifi connection with neighbors

this is obviously a wrong decision, the user is paying for his internet connection and he should be able to share it with whomever he likes, regardless of whether that might impact possible sales by some ISP - interestingly enough, this exercise/abuse of power is aimed at the low end of the social ladder, whereas it is a good guess they wouldn't dare try it higher up the ladder (the higher, the less likely)

it looks even worse considering how there is a world-wide initiative to provide open/free wireless zones for connecting to the internet, for anyone to access/use at will - seems some are operational in brazil as well

South America

* Aparecida, Brazil Free service [55]
* Belo Horizonte, Brazil[56]
* La Plata, Argentina - free, city center only [26]
* Sud Mennucci, Brazil -- free, limited to downtown. City-operated.

Planned:

South America

* Jacareí, Brazil[80]
* São José dos Campos, Brazil[81]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_wireless_network#South_America

People who are less well-off have tendencies to do that. It's common behavior throughout the world for people in less fortunate regions of the world to share with neighbors, family, extended-families, friends, and so forth.

sharing things is a universal behavioral characteristic, regardless of material status, though maybe it could be claimed that it happens less with the rich even though they probably have more to share

There is no such thing as bad publicity

[anon]

this is obviously a wrong decision, the user is paying for his internet connection and he should be able to share it with whomever he likes, regardless of whether that might impact possible sales by some ISP

And if those people hadn't been able to get a hold of that shared connection, chances are none of them would have paid the provider for a "full" subscription, because of their economical situation. Sounds familiar? It's the same thing as with piracy.