John
Yes, NoCat Auth can provide this time limited access. The NoCat.pm in
"/usr/local/nocat/lib" can be altered.
### No. of seconds before logins/renewals expire.
LoginTimeout => 300,
MinLoginTimeout => 60,
Just do not allow re-news for a time ~24hours or at midnight reset.
Enjoy,
-tp
BTW: send a sector in my direction... San Mateo 5th/El Camino Real :)
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of John Foust
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 7:17 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [BAWUG] Time-limited free access?
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
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