Paul Boutin nails the lid down on the coffin of for-fee hot spots: Colleague Paul Boutin writes in Wired magazine about how free Wi-Fi can cost less to offer than for-fee Wi-Fi.
Having just spent weeks talking to folks who build back-end hot spot billing systems or run hot spot networks, I don't believe the per-day cost are quite as high except for small operations. It doesn't cost T-Mobile $30 to $70 per day in non-bandwidth costs to run their authentication and billing networks. It probably does cost T-Mobile $25 to $50 per day for the T-1 line, however.
$3.00 a day, including DSL and authentication, is a reasonably attainable figure for a single-AP hotspot location.
The (self-inflicted) problem is that some hotspot companies insist on T1s instead of DSL.
For a small Hot Spot, a T1 line is not nessasary.
DSL and Cable access is much more cost effective and most (if not all ) will offer tiers of bandwidth use to suit your needs. My local service will offer very high bandwidth, their top tier, at less than $10.00 per day, using high speed cable.
1) I wonder if you are right about the costs of a WiFi AAA and RADIUS system for a company with overhead like a T-Mobile. Some of that software costs 10s of thousands for the privilege of only a few thousand people in the database. And if they wrote it and host it themselves-lot's of money.
I would love to see those numbers; whether high back office costs trumps or gets trumped by amortizing thousands of places.
2) What I would really like to see though, is the costs that the telephone companies (for example, Verizon) charge themselves for the lines they use to provide 'free WiFi.' If I can't get the same rates they charge themselves by virtue of their infrastructure...well, I would start wondering how to spell 'restraint of trade' if I were trying to 'sell' against them. If I have the WiFi Joint, I have to pay for the phone line and the DSL. Do they charge themselves for both.
3) On the other hand, if the phone companies are playing square, then when they realize that they need better more bandwidth for cheaper rates to stay solvent, then that will benefit us all - as long as they pass it along.