On 27 Sep 2023, at 03:02, Matthew H (2E0SIP) via 44net <44net@mailman.ampr.org> wrote:
Hi all,
The Terms of Service states:
"Your license permits You to use certain addresses exclusively for the purpose of Amateur Radio communications and experimentation, or other special uses as may be agreed to by ARDC"
I was wondering if this was clarified anywhere with examples of acceptable use cases? A few examples that I'm curious if they're permitted or not:
ARDC are in the process of clarifying this very questionby way of a formal policy as it has been a bit ambiguous and open to interpretation.
Currently it is myself who approves BGP requests, so I can answer your questions in the context of a request for BGP announced address space…
- Hosting a radio club website that's accessible from the public internet, including from non radio amateurs.
Yes, no problem at all.
- Providing general outbound internet access for radio amateurs connecting via RF, whether its AX.25 or WiFi operating on the allocated amateur radio frequencies
Not a good idea - apart from the obvious issue of accessing HTTPS / encrypted sites then having that encrypted data transported over amateur RF frequencies (which would not be permitted in a lot of countries due to licence restrictions) there is also the grey area of providing general internet access to third parties.
- Hosting not strictly amateur radio services such as an IRC server for discussing cars, but it's only reachable from other 44net addresses and RF users
If that was your only reason it would be a definite no, so strictly speaking it wouldn’t be allowed as it is not ham related, but I know folk do add on the occasional “other” service and as long as it is not doing anyone any harm…
- Providing general outbound internet access to servers and services that might need to pull software updates from non-radio amateur servers.
If these servers are providing ham related services, e.g. hosting ham websites etc, then of course servers need to update and from non-ham sources, so that would be fine. If the servers were hosting services unrelated to ham in any way then you should host those services on a commercial IP.
- Providing connectivity to a radio amateur related server such as a DMR Master, to other radio amateur related servers outside of 44net
Perfectly ok.
This is a good prompt to ask for opinions on this subject - as I said at the start, ARDC are in the process of formalising a policy for acceptable use cases, so if anyone has any opinions on the subject, please make your thoughts known - it would be useful to have community input to help shape the policy.