Back in March I mentioned an idea I had: http://lists.bawug.org/pipermail/wireless/2002-March/005725.html to market my commercial WISP business by giving away free access, limited to some small length of time per day such as fifteen minutes. Right now, my WISP is aimed at businesses and SOHO, not residential.
My theory is that many dial-up users don't spend much time online. They check their e-mail a few times a week and visit a web site or two. They resent paying $9.95 to $15 a month for access. (After all, oversubscription is how dial-up ISPs make a living.) On the other hand, they might buy a $250 radio installation if they perceive their future Internet access as "free". By offering limited free access, I can still make money (or at least not lose money) selling ready-to-go radios, antennas, cables and customer premise installations. Presuming I can make a good impression and build good will, it grows my business-oriented consulting. And like dial-up oversubscription, I can give away a lot of 15 minute sips without hurting my main feed's bandwidth. And how much abuse could someone wreak in 15 minutes? Eventually, I can upsell full-time access to those who get hooked. I'd think that other free-access sites such as coffee shops could benefit from time limits. It makes sense to give drinkers an hour or two, but you might want to block the parasite across the street. I'd be content with a system based on (yes, potentially spoofable) MAC addresses. It would be nice to pre-register free users so they don't need to login to a portal every time go online. Is NoCatAuth capable of this scheme, limiting a user class to 15 minutes a day? Or can another system handle this? - John -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
