Tim,

Tim Chown wrote: but yes a university may feel it wants to offer connectivity to past students

This is a grey area for sure. I don't think that providing access to currently enrolled students can reasonably be considered bad use of public money, for the good reason that a simple accounting trick will assign that to tuition fees students do pay. Besides, access to the university's computer resources is mandatory for studying, and a university provided dial pool does have some operational advantages in terms of security. However, providing access to past students could definitely be seen as using public money to compete with businesses.

staff.

I do not think staff is a problem. They get a paycheck that contains public money, why can't they use a dial-up that is paid by public money?

In terms of the get-outs, I expect that commercial spin-offs or products from the universities (e.g. a university selling intelligent widgets) may be hosted from a university with such a spin-off.

Most of these will get grants that include cash from the university, there is nothing fundamentally wrong in making connectivity part of the grant.

the really fuzzy area is universities who use their academic connectivity to give students access from halls of residence, which if done with open ADSL-like rules may well let students run commercial services.

This is not that bad. Students have 10 meg connectivity in dorms. And yes, we know they'll use it not only for studying but also to surf porn and download pirated .mp3s. From time to time, an idiot will run a warez ftp server and will get busted. Frankly, I'd look the other way if I see a student that runs a website for his on-campus pizza delivery service that helps pay his/her tuition. I think it all comes down to this: fast and reliable Internet access is something that students need. Money and side jobs are also something lotsof them need. They are students for 4 years, after that they get a real job and pay for their own. Michel.