A New Zealand company, Tomizone, is working along with D-link to provide ordinary citizens like you and I to become the neighborhood Internet service provider. Tomizone claims it enables "anyone with a bit of time, inclination and a D-Link wireless router the capability to setup a secure hotspot from any broadband connection and start making money."

Australian and New Zealand customers will be the first in the world to be able to establish themselves as neighborhood Internet Service Providers. Tomizone firmware is downloaded from the Tomizone site and loaded onto a D-Link router/broadcaster. The firmware broadcasts the signal which can be picked up from within your neighborhood. The broadcast serves up a page where the recipient can sign on to the service to receive broadband Internet. The sign on process is linked to the Tomizone site where credit card details are obtained from the neighborhood customer and service is then enabled for the customer to receive broadband via the service.

The Tomizone site provides brochures for Tomizone operators (people like you and I) to introduce your neighbors to the service. You can print the brochures on your home printer, or you can order brochures to be printed by a commercial service that will completed the printing and send the brochures through the mail. Promotional items even include Table Postcards, Stickers, Letterbox Stickers, Window Stickers and a User Brochure.

The recommended D-Link router, DI-524, is a great performer using the 802.11g specification for maximum speed. Your neighbors can use this to access movies, music and other downloadables. Tomizone charge about $4 a day for daily users but much less per day if a user signs up for a month, or several months. And you, the operator of the Tomizone router in the neighborhood receives 50% of the daily take. Payment is made via PayPal so that you can access your money from anywhere in the 54 countries PayPal operates within. So looks like a way to earn some money in your neighborhood.

Great idea. It will be interesting to see Tomizone rollout in Australia in the CeBIT Show in a few days time -- early May. Tomizone say that when they have enough rolled out in New Zealand and Australia they will be zoning into USA markets very shortly after.