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Wireless Networking Hardware

Verizon To Offer WiFi At Pay Phones 196

Posted by timothy from the can-you-ping-me-now dept.
Makarand writes "Verizon has ambitious plans to catapult pay phones from the pre-cellular era to the WiFi era by creating hotspots around pay phones using an extension of their DSL service. The current plan is to upgrade 200,000 pay phones in the New York metro area to provide a WiFi service. Although major metros are spotted with hotspots, finding them is usually a big problem. Verizon thinks that specially marked WiFi enabled pay phones would solve the problem of locating the hotspots." Sounds similar to Bell Canada's move to do the same.
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Verizon To Offer WiFi At Pay Phones More

Verizon To Offer WiFi At Pay Phones

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  • This is a pleasant surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreatDave ( 620927 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:44PM (#5933621)
    I'd love to see payphones miniaturized and extended into both wireless broadband hotspots and VoIP phone points. This could lead to more bang for the buck for Verizon.
    • Not to mention the fact that with a wireless link you don't have to worry about what the last creap who used the phone was infected with...

      ...Though your laptop might.

  • I think this sort of wireless coverage would be unreliable at best. But I'm in favor of increased wireless coverage. When's it coming to Fresno? :)

  • i can see it now.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by heff ( 24452 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:45PM (#5933631)
    I can imagine some guy loading up a copy of aim at one of these hot spots to recieve a message "if you log out of aim, I'll shoot you, do not tell anyone what I've told you" etc.

    they could even make a movie about it.. er
    • Yeah, but as soon as the shoot a hole through the laptop screen it becomes quite unusable. At least with the exit wound and all.
    • If the guy isnt running linux hes a dead man...windows would crash after an hour...and then he would be a dead man

      i was planning to wait until the producer of that movie to walk buy a phone booth before i made the phone call to demand those 2 hours of my life back....now i just have to sniff his .net passport.. and given the fact that it is made by microsoft...finding his passport would be easier than dailing the number.

  • Verizon is making me happy (Score:4, Informative)

    by friedegg ( 96310 ) <bryan@noSPaM.wrestlingdb.com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:45PM (#5933632) Homepage
    The Wi-Fi at payphones has potential, plus they just lowered the Verizon DSL price while increasing the download speed, AND they're standing up for their customers privacy rights. Now, if they'd just unblock port 80...

  • Says Lionel Hutz... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Linguica ( 144978 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:45PM (#5933634)
    Hey, you, get out of my office!
  • WiFi sniffer is a handy tool for finding wireless networks, its a credit card sized device that detects networks and their strength...Public WiFi spots are nice..It'd be intresting to see which platform of 802.11, a b or g..maybe all of em..very cool inovation

  • hrm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xao gypsie ( 641755 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:46PM (#5933637)
    i wonder if this is also a bit of a security risk. i mean, yes you can have some kind of authentication procedure, but will that stop everyone? and besides, once on illegaly, who knows what havoc will be wrought.....
    just a thought.

    xao

    • havoc? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lpret ( 570480 ) <lpret42 AT hotmail DOT com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:11PM (#5934037) Homepage Journal
      Why would this be any different than any dsl connection? Because it's wifi?


      The most anyone could do is get past the authentication, so Verizon loses a little money, it's not a big deal. That certainly isn't havoc in my book.


      Now what would be interesting is to have that wifi dsl and then also do an ad-hoc network and allow several people to get on through their own little gateway. Brings down the cost quite a bit I'd think...

  • "As Americans, we're all trained to look for pay phones,"

    i wonder if this is true for non-americans as well :)
    • AFAIK thats not the case here in Australia, that might be different if 95% of the population didn't have Mobile Phones!
    • "As Americans, we're all trained to look for pay phones,"

      And as one of those well-trained Americans I've noticed that the proliferation of cell phones (and probably increased vandalism as well) has resulted in a rapidly dwindling number of payphones, and when you do find one it's probably owned and operated by mom and pop's fly-by-night phone company instead of whatever real local (even though probably now owned by a giant conglomerate) company that actually owns the telephone wires in the area.

  • ...Well until tommarow.

    Yeah brain what are we going to do tomarrow night?

    The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!

  • This is a great idea.. imagine walking along wanting to check your email, just stand next to the payphone and check it!, a neat idea might be to provide some form of printing facility in the phone booth as well.. i can't see things like this happening in Australia for many many years though!!!

  • How Much? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:48PM (#5933654) Homepage Journal

    Verizon is obviously not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Even the telecomm analyst says this could be a, "moneymaker." Yet conspicuously absent from the press release is any discussion of pricing.

    Is there any word on how much they expect to charge for this? How the billing will be performed? Can you use your laptop as-is, or will you be required to install some custom software (almost certainly Windoze-only)?

    Schwab

    • Re:How Much? (Score:4, Informative)

      by GreatDave ( 620927 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:53PM (#5933687)
      I'd imagine they'd just use a "captive firewall" application, like some hotels use for their in-room DSL access. In other words, you fire up your web browser, and all traffic goes to their box which asks you for a credit card payment before opening you up to the world. IOW, there's no need for some quickly-hacked Visual Basic program to do this.

    • One laptop, many providers (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @12:24AM (#5934580)
      Wireless ISPs have to have some kind of mutual pricing scheme or its just not going to take off. Here in Chicago there are more than a few wireless providers, each taking a very small chunk of the city. Say I wanted wifi access at the coffeeshop next door I'd have to pay x amount per month or a pay for a punishing day pass price. The other coffeeshop or the wifi at O'Hare wants my money also, but I'm sure as heck not paying all three of them a month. That would be like $100 just for occasional wireless access.

      Wifi cannot be sold like this. Its like a different owner for every cell phone cell in the city. "Oh so you drove into my cell, pay $30 a month buddy!"

      There is a huge need for some kind of central billing authority that all these ISPs can share. Its this, spotty coverage, or some big monopoly is going to waltz in and buy all these small providers.

      Considering that 802.11's range is exremely limited I don't see how anyone could be making real money off of it when it comes to in-store access. The coffeeshop has one lousy AP and even with a kick-ass 802.11 card you can't get much further than the curb outside the store. I'd much rather see business treat wifi as a service for its customers like free newspapers, bathrooms, etc. A DSL line and an AP and some authentication scheme isn't that expensive. I'd much rather pay a couple pennies extra per cup of coffee than pay yet another wireless provider.
      • Yep, and that's exactly the 'killing' (in the first meaning) point of WiFi against GSM-based networks
      • Actually, the service is a free add-on to NYC DSL subscription. you would need to register your wireless device and follow some authentication, but there is no other bill.

        the "moneymaker" for Verizon is the added DSL subscribers in metro areas, rather than wireless bandwidth pricing.

  • Your connection is about to end... (Score:5, Funny)

    by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:49PM (#5933657)
    "...please insert another quarter to get one more megabyte"
  • War driving just got 100 times easier thanks to Verizon. First they defend us against the RIAA, now they're giving us free wireless access throughout NYC!

    • Re:War driving (Score:2, Informative)

      by gnarled ( 411192 )
      The article says its an extension of their DSL service, in other words these people are already paying them. There would most likely be some sort of authentication.

  • Can you ping me now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by corebreech ( 469871 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:50PM (#5933663) Journal
    (sorry, couldn't resist)

  • Pricing wifi? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CaffeineKills ( 652146 )
    Hmmm, maybe they plan to have some type of system where the wifi transmitter is only turned on when you insert the correct amount of money. Also, they mention high speeds but they never clarify, what kind of network are the phones gonna be hooked up to?

    • Charging Technique (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Corpus_Callosum ( 617295 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:59PM (#5933714) Homepage
      I'm sure this will work the same as most broad-band in-hotel services. A NAT will not pass your packets until your MAC address has been authorized to do so. Until then, only outbound port 80 traffic does anything -> It redirects to the "Authorize this computer" webpage.

      Perhaps existing Verizon customers can log-in to their account and authorize a MAC address (I'm sure it will be made easy), or a quick credit-card transaction will activate service.

      I highly doubt you would ever have to actually "touch" the phone-booth. Just get close, flip the lid on your powerbook, have Safari auto-fill your authorization and away you go.

  • A last gasp (Score:4, Insightful)

    by coupland ( 160334 ) * <dchaseNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:51PM (#5933671) Journal
    This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve...

    • Re:A last gasp (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zutroy ( 542820 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:52PM (#5933681) Homepage
      I don't think that Verizon actually needs to do this. They don't really have an interest in keeping the payphones viable; they're phasing them out anyway. This is just an interesting new way to use existing infrastructure that would have otherwise been sent to the scrap heap.
    • This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve..

      Payphones are no more obsolete than your home phone.

      I don't understand some people's obsession with new technology ONLY. There are good reasons to keep pay phones around, just like there are good reasons to keep t
    • Pay phones are still viable, but maybe not in your neighborhood. Go down to the barrio and see how many pay phones there are. Lots of people still can't afford cell phones and therefore still use pay phones. That's not going to change anytime soon.

      The decline you see in pay phones in your neighborhood is certainly due to increased cell phone usage, but that is because you probably live in a relatively affluent neighborhood (ie: people there don't rely on welfare).
  • About half those phones lack electrical power needed for the transmitters, he told a conference on wireless security hosted by Stevens Institute of Technology, his alma mater.

    What they can do, instead of upgrading the phones, is install solar panels with battery packs. the only downside is they'd be subject to lighting conditions and vandalism, but it would probably be cheaper in the long run.

  • The future of phone booths.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:53PM (#5933686)
    .. when we all have our own portable phones/pdas/computers/etc. will be a space that provides privacy and quite, as well as either a damm good external universal anteanna setup or a hard wire.

    I also predict that you will be able to drop a dime/quarter/etc. in a glass jar and get a free connection, since pay authentication will be sound based.

  • Ack, Superman! (Score:4, Funny)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@NosPAM.etoyoc.com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:54PM (#5933689) Homepage Journal
    Where the hell is superman supposed to change now?

    And while we are at it, will they still have handsets for the rebels to zap back to their ship with?

  • How would you use it? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zutroy ( 542820 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:54PM (#5933692) Homepage
    I'm wondering who will be willing to stand next to a payphone, attnetion focused on a laptop, in the middle of a major city. It seems like an open invitation for muggers.

    • Re:How would you use it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by the-dude-man ( 629634 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:02PM (#5933726)
      well not quite...you see those transmiters have an average transmittion range of 50 meters....so its more like creating a wireless grid over the streets of NYC...so if your sitting in traffic for example...you can be talking on GAIM.

      As it stands now though, you can walk down 31st street and see people with laptops sitting on the bus stops doing one thing or another....so people would be willing to sit down and work with a laptop on a major city street. However, the options are not limited to this.

      I amagine verison would end up selling a service to subscribers...authentate people to the network, and then you have wireless access as you drive the streets of NYC with access to the internet...it would be kinda cool if wi-fi wasnt as secure as the stream of piss going from me into the toilet.
    • I'm wondering who will be willing to stand next to a payphone

      People think so 3D. Just because it's a pay station, doesn't mean it has to be at chest height. This could very well be a bench, with Wifi transmitter(s) and coin slot(s).

    • I'm wondering who will be willing to stand next to a payphone, attnetion focused on a laptop, in the middle of a major city. It seems like an open invitation for muggers.

      Presumably people who, unlike you, don't live on dirt farms, driving pickup trucks and having sex with livestock.

      Have you been to a "major city" recently? Or indeed ever?

      Here in Washington DC (ooh, scaaaaaaary) I see people with laptops sitting out everywhere, including parks in all sorts of neighborhoods. When I'm in New York they

  • wi-fi not quite ready (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the-dude-man ( 629634 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @08:55PM (#5933696)
    I really cant say i think wi-fi is ready for this

    In its current capacity....wi-fi is very insecure...its ok for inside a corperate building... and for a home network...but out on the streets? Currently there is nothign to secure wi-fi connections, i have an access point in my house with 2 laptops on it....when i was setting up the last one...in order to debug a problem i sat there and sniffed the traffic...the traffic over wi-fi goes over the air with no security protocols on it at all....now ethernet isnt much better (with the exception of wrappers like PPPoE to help disgues info) but its also not brodcasting to everyone within 100 meters.

    The problem isnt the traffic being sniffed...i can fix that with a simple ssh tunnel...my problem is with the machine authentication...its basicly a clear text (well not quite...but from a security stand point it basiclly is) protocol...i can drive thru downtown boston and spoof myself onto any wireless network I encounter...a simple shell script chooses a victim and pretends to be them..there really is nothing to it.

    Now for small restricted locations, were the general public dosnt have access too..this really isnt THAT much of a problem...however, if you have people subscribing to this, in downtown new york, out int he open...unless they adapt their own wi-fi protocol....they are basically putting hundreds of thousands of free victim for a hacker with a "war drive".

    the tcp porton of the protocol can realistcally stay the same...but we need to find a better way to authenticate boxes onto the network at the physical layer. Right now anyone with prisim II drivers can wonder onto any wi-fi network they encouter.

    Wi-fi is definatly cooll...i run it at home because its nice...but for a production network, I just dont think wi-fi is at that point yet.
    • Please. Wires are only marginally more secure than wireless - you can sniff ethernet cables with a directional antenna, too, and there's a much lower tech inductive couple mechanism for your phones.

      Saying wireless is insecure should be like saying a wire is insecure. A wire IS insecure, if it's connected to anything. You should always assume wired and wireless networks have been compromised and do the only intelligent thing: Hard transparent encryption (ssh killed the telnet star, like you said) from end t
      • Wires are only marginally more secure than wireless - you can sniff ethernet cables with a directional antenna, too... Mot quite...can ethernet be sniffed? yes, if you are on the same segment...someone installs a switch and your screwed...if i dont want you to be able to sniff a particular box, i just blug it into a switch at the same connectivity level as my peers or above it. In fact, in a fully switched ethernet network, sniffing becomes impossible..passive modes dsont work because your not seeing other
        • Your reply is borderline incoherent.

          Can you sniff ethernet with an anetnna? no. There is no frequency carrier on the signals, without a carrier...there is no way for the signal to be carried to the antenna

          I hope you're not in charge of security anywhere important. Ethernet has a physical layer, just like 802.11 - hell, the reason 802.11 is so nifty is it's modelled after wired ethernet. Most ethernet cable is UTP (unshielded), and there is a nontrivial amount of leakage. Shielded is better, but how much
          • I hope you're not in charge of security anywhere important. Ethernet has a physical layer, just like 802.11 - hell, the reason 802.11 is so nifty is it's modelled after wired ethernet. Most ethernet cable is UTP (unshielded), and there is a nontrivial amount of leakage. Shielded is better, but how much? If someone really wants your precious data, you have to assume the channel is not secure. Anytime you have an electrical signal changing values, you have EMI generated. That EMI will be deterministic with th
            • You're on crack.

              Any sufficiently long wire is an antenna, and the leakage from unshielded twisted pair is nontrivial. The carrier that fast ethernet data is modulated onto (125MHz) is of a short enough wavelength in comparison to the wire that it really leaks pretty well.

              If you have a aviation band radio, tune it to 125MHz, and listen to the nice sound you get for each transmitted packet on a nearby LAN. I just did the test and heard plenty of noise on mine. Retrieving the bits would probably take a sm
        • I don't want to be a bummer.. but there are a lot of factual errors in this post.

          A switch will not protect you, and an attacker is certainly not screwed if a switch is in place. A switch is NOT a security measure, not in the least.

          Look up ettercap, and read about arp spoofing / arp poisoning.

          It is highly effecitve, and extremely easy to do... I can plug into your switched network, redirect all traffic destined for any computer or computer(s) I want (including something really interesting like your gatew
    • Currently there is nothign to secure wi-fi connections,

      Yes there is. SSH/IPsec/SSL/whatever. There are plenty of ways. The whole problem is that people just don't do anything to protect their privacy.

      Wireless networks should be treated as just another unsecured network, like the internet itself. Since you're most likely using 802.11? to connect to the internet, you already have all that stuff set up don't you?

      The problem isnt the traffic being sniffed...i can fix that with a simple ssh tunnel...m
  • It would be interesting to know what the decline in revenue payphones generate is over the last, say, 10 years. Anyone have info on that?

    At least, I assume they have declined in revenue (at least figuring in for inflation and the price level). Maybe usage statistics would be more of an indication?

  • Pricing Plans (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Robspiere ( 587603 ) <robspiere @ a o l.com> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:40PM (#5933886)
    The article says they're "studying pricing plans." I wonder if they'll do a flat rate or what. I imagine they'd just put a DSL modem and a 802.11x box in each phone, and as we all know, once the cost of installing the base stations has been recovered, there's really almost no operating expense. They've got the DSLAMS in place around the city already and the could make support on the web only.

    They're not likely to give it away, though. If they're smart they would tie it into their DSL service. They could provide one concurrent WiFi login per home DSL account. It could be your same login/password that you use for the crappy PPPoE service at home, and they could use the "captive firewall" as described above.

    That might make me switch from Road Runner cable modem.
  • I can email CAA and send them a detailed description of where I am using mapquest.

    Thank you Verizon.

  • Good Deal! (Score:4, Funny)

    by SN74S181 ( 581549 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:52PM (#5933936)
    Now the pawnshops near the darker, more secluded phone booths will have better, cheaper prices on handheld devices and laptops.

  • This is what I like to see.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dr Reducto ( 665121 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:53PM (#5933943) Journal
    I like to see companies piggybacking new technologies onto existing infrastructure. That guy who was trying to cover the nation will fail because he has to set up nationwide infrastructure, whereas Verizon has a space in most cities.
    In addition, payphones are probably already laid out through the city to provide optimal reception (payphones have to occur at certain places and every so often). Also, not having to rent out new space in Manhattan is worth its weight in gold. The cabling is already in place, they just need to add a $30 piece of hardware to the top, and they'll probably use a large antenna to ensure a decent line of sight. The only thing left is to make them tamper-proof (fortress router anyone?).

  • combine with VOIP? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TracerJPN_USMC ( 623396 ) <{pj.en.ten-ynnus} {ta} {gjnotnroht}> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @09:57PM (#5933963)
    Why not combine this with a packaged VOIP service.. beats standing in line for a pay phone right? stay within 50 feet or so of the phone, break out your laptop and makes calls via VOIP. yes i know my sig is broken.

  • Great Idea (Score:2, Funny)

    by nate nice ( 672391 )
    Good to see public phones may have a use after all...at least the space the consume. I wondered the other day what was to become of all these pay phones as many people have cells, except me. Good idea.

  • What about stealing credit cards? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sllim ( 95682 ) <achance.earthlink@net> on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:07PM (#5934026)
    I know nothing. Lets be clear. I beg your forgiveness if this is a stupid comment.

    But...............

    Is there any way someone could steal credit cards by hiding a laptop within a hotspot sniffing packets and recording the transmissions?

    It occurs to me that you know that anytime someone boots up into this thing they are using a credit card. It is kind of hard to resist such an idea.

    • Re:What about stealing credit cards? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:53PM (#5934173) Homepage Journal
      Depends upon the actual implementation involved. If the AP has a secure web server built in, and uses an encrypted tunnel to check on the credit card and start billing for time, you should never see a decrypted card number outside of that box.

      This would require that the web page that you go to to "log in" to the AP redirects to the secure server. I doubt that this would be a significant problem.

      For Verizon DSL or fixed rate customers, authentication could be accomplished through an RSA or PGP/GPG public key authentication check. You would have to sign up for it from home, and generate a public/private key set, give Verizon the public key, and keep the private key on whatever device you are going to use on the network. Yes this would present a potential hacking threat, so I would want to use a seprate key than I use for my own e-mail, or stuff I sign.

      Obviously these are hardly the only possible solutions.

      -Rusty
      • I think the Poster's idea was to set up a laptop as a phone access point. Basically like the phony ATM scams. You see all the right stuff, they capture all your secutity details, and then at the last minute get a "Oops" internal system error, while they max out your card and/or clean out your checking account.

        Back in high school someone had a BASIC program they would run that looked like the Novel login screen. People would type in their password, and it would right the information to the cracker's accoun

  • Wow. Are there really that many in New York? In Chicago, they've all but disappeared. There are still some inside buildings, and maybe that's what Verizon is targeting, but you can walk for many, many, many blocks before stumbling across one outside. I only remember seeing a couple in the entire Loop.

  • Prelude to Bankruptcy Court (Score:3, Insightful)

    by toxic666 ( 529648 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @10:54PM (#5934179)
    Cheese and crackers, have you read the balance sheet lately? Verizon is up to its eyes in debt and its income won't cover financing costs, let alone the principal.

    From the MCI / Worldcom adventure, they realize that the courts are going to let telecoms go into bankruptcy and wipe out debt. Since all of that investment in the 1990's is only returning 2.5% -- not enough to cover the financing -- they may as well build all they can in new and potentially profitable technology (wireless) and grab broadband market share (cheap DSL) before declaring bankruptcy.

    They will continue to build infrastructure as long as there are creditors foolish enough to lend them money.

  • I Wonder If... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @11:21PM (#5934317) Journal

    ...this will keep payphones from going extinct, and maybe even bring them back where they've disappeared. That'd be cool. Maybe they could even roll out a lower bandwidth version for inexpensive pay-as-you-use internet, just to get email and stuff.

  • Before I needed 2600Hz to get free phone calls--but it was integrated into my Cap'N Crunch whistle, so it was no big deal.

    Now I need 2.4Ghz to get free Internet, and I can only get it integrated with a new Centrino processor. So much for 'technology for the masses'.

    (In all seriousness, though, this is a kind of a wet dream for 2600NYC and anyone else who figures out how to h4xor the payphone network)

  • how secure can this be for the people using it the way this is described? seems like its very apt to be very open to monitoring by vultures as it were.

    how do you know the access point your using is actually the pay phone's?

  • Noise? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by marcushnk ( 90744 )
    isn't this just going to generate a bucket load of radio "noise", that will make Wireless networks of businesses harder to setup/maintain..

    I really don't think that this tech was meant to be used in such a "overpopulated" way..
  • Not trying to be snarky but if you break out your TiBook on any random NYC street and spend more time looking at your screen than at the people around you, you'll have it jacked right quick. If Verizon thinks that people will be logging in while on the street, I doubt it. Maybe from the cafe nearby?

  • Now the drug dealers can use their laptops too! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @03:41AM (#5935111)
    Now the drug dealers hanging out on the corner can use their laptops for drug transactions...and keep track of their inventory/order more product at the same time!
  • Here is an idea to solve the "how do I pay for this access" problem as it relates to pay phone based WiFi (not a general solution for roaming)...

    You walk up to the new WiFi phone, press a special button (marked WiFi), swipe your credit card. Your laptop, PDA, whatever, is set up for DHCP and grabs the next IP address that is freed up from the phone/AP.

    Then you are charged per minute with some minimum time charge ($1 for the first 10 minutes then $0.10 per minute after that).

  • Now we'll see seedy, unkempt suspicious people hanging around pay phones again. Only now they will be holding a laptop or hand held, called a geek and dealing MP3s instead of drugs.

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