Do you take WiFi with your coffee?

Disclaimer: Obligatory "homework" post ahead. 'Sup Cindy. :)

So... I've been reading Common Times lately for my news. Today they ran this story about the growing rate of prevalence of communication technology. It got me thinking about this post from Rich at Aldo Coffee, about the business risks of being a free WiFi hot spot.

I agree somewhat with the points he makes - a small business owner can't afford to take the liability of an attack based from their network as an origination point. The costs tripling bit surprised me somewhat - either Telerama is heavily subsidizing their WiFi business, pillaging their commercial broadband customers, or both. A decent speed dedicated business line shouldn't be going for more than $80/mo. Granted, his post was from 9 months ago, and costs have definitely dropped since then.

So I wondered if a technical solution would exist that might help regulate traffic for someone in the position to offer free wireless. Because, reading that story, it seems to me that in the near future, not having it is going to become the greater liability. The stuff Nintendo is doing with the DS indicates to me pretty clearly that localized, spontaneous use of networking capability is going to rapidly become the norm. And what better way to attract customers than to be a servicer of that need (as well as slinging some mean Joe to boot)?

The first time I read Rich's post, I'd envisioned a completely different set of problems; the largest being loitering. How would you mitigate the exploitation of your generosity? Also, how do you stop someone from hogging all the free 'width, slowing everyone else to a trickle?

The solution I had in mind would be a modified standard access point with some additional web interface. It would implement a ticketing system that could optionally be integrated with a cash register or credit card reader. So - user buys a latte, user gets a ticket. The ticket is good for 1 hour at a rated speed, at which point the subscription expires. But by then he's thirsty again anyway. You can't "combine" tickets (ie, get your friends to hook you up) because they're tied to a specific IP address assigned by the AP. You could make the subscription speed or length vary based on the purchase. You could also configure it to work like a debit card, which might help solve the hacker problem. Instead of a subscription you get X megabits of up/down traffic, and once you've used it it's gone.

I'd be astonished if a product with these or similar features is not available today. I'm inclined to believe that there is some sort of indemnity or insurance available as well. I don't hear about libraries being spammer dens or hacker havens, so somebody's on to something. All that leaves for Rich to figure out is how to cover the expense.

Hey, did I mention I have some ideas about that, too?