Comment: Who will police the law of the LAN?

Good manners isn't much of an issue for mobile phones, but it is for wireless LANs.

OK, I know, good manners really is an issue for mobile phones. Turn the thing off in the cinema, and try not to speak too loudly on a train, especially if you're having The Train Conversation ("Hi, it's me. I'm on the train ...").

But with a mobile phone you can't swamp everybody by cranking the volume up on the broadcast signal, just because you're trying to reach a cell on the other side of town. With Wi-Fi, you can. It's illegal, of course, but if you plug an amplifier in, you can wipe out intervening signals for miles around.

One of the things you discover if you're talking to rural broadband people, is that they are, mostly, assuming that issues like this aren't worth discussing. They want broadband in communities where BT and the cable companies can't be bothered - or don't have the money - to invest. And they particularly want to be allowed to transmit high-power signals, so that they can reach further.

I'm all in favour of changing the rather absurd laws we have on power limits for Wi-Fi frequencies for rural areas - the US model allows far more interesting applications. But we should start discussing how we will police people who abuse this. In five years' time, there will be people who feel entitled to have their own, private long-distance Wi-Fi applications - like, transmitting to a friend across the valley. The official spectrum-police will, quite simply, not be able to keep up with this. Ofcom isn't planning to hire many enforcers and if it did, they would have trouble tracing the offenders.

In the end, it will depend on good manners. I wonder if that is grounds for optimism, or despair?

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