Wireless Hotspot Creation?

ezodon asks: "I have been tasked by management to submit a plan on creating a wireless hot-spot in several of our locations. Management would like to be able to charge for the wireless access from our customers. Because of the desire to charge, I have not been able to find any Open Source software, and just a few commercial offerings. I have checked out PublicIP and LessNetworks wireless management software, but neither has a direct billing option. We already have a merchant account and credit card machines at all of our locations. Can anyone in Slashdot land give me some recommendations on how to get this done?"

Comments

May I ask

[antifoidulus]

what exactly is your business? How much are you planning to charge. In the long run it may cost you more to keep the pay system running than you actually make in revenue from the system. For example, I'm sure if starbucks could force you to buy something in order to use the wireless internet access they would, but they would probably lose more money in wasting employee time and printing receipts and creating a ticket system etc. than they would actually gain from the few people who just mooch off the system. Yeah, there are going to be those people, but if your business offers a good enough product, most people who want to use the internet will probably end up patrons as well.
I find it ironic that many penny pinchers actually waste more money penny pinching than they would by being a little more free with their money.