Controlling Access to Wireless APs?
pvera asks: "A friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend is thinking of offering wireless internet access at the medical conferences that he organizes. He already has people that can help him setting the access point itself and the connection to the internet, but he does not know how to control access. I am a T-mobile hot-spot subscriber, and my service uses some sort of proxy that does not allow me to surf thru their network unless I authenticate on a page that comes up regardless of what my home page is set to. Once I am authenticated then the proxy is transparent to me.
Here in Arlington, VA there is a company called iSurf networks that has the exact same setup as T-mobile, only they sell their service thru pre-paid cards. The cards are just like phone cards, your scratch a strip in the back to have access to the account id and the password. While you use the connection it shows a pop-up with a count-down display so you know how much time is left in your card. Does anyone know of a commercial or open source product that allows this functionality? Or of a company that provides an outsourced solution to do this?"
Two soup cans and a string.