Re: Breaking the internet (hotels, guestnet style)

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Wed, 9 Dec 2009, Mark Andrews wrote:
> Having a DHCP option is better than the mess we have now.  To go
> further requires agreement on how to present terms, pricing etc.
> in a standardised way.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but PPPOE has had that option for a 
decade.  Major operating system vendors would never implemented that PPPOE 
option.  It wasn't an accidental ommission by one major vendor.

In the mean time, i.e. for the last 10 years, hotspot/guestnets have come 
up with interesting kludges to work around the lack of support in major 
operating systems and applications.  If you get something that works 
better and works for 90%+ of the potential market in less than 10 
years, people will beat a path to your door.

Some vendors have 802.1x clients which handle things farily well, in my 
opinion much better than another DHCP kludge (UDP protocol needing its own 
protection before causing your computer to run something); but anything 
requiring your customers to install special software seems to limit your 
potential market to a few percent.