Breaking the internet (hotels, guestnet style)
Sean Donelan
sean at donelan.com
Wed Dec 9 00:18:28 UTC 2009
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.
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