ON-SITE POINT-OF-SALE BILLING SYSTEM WHICH MANAGES PUBLIC USE OF WIRED OR WIRELESS ACCESS NETWORK

摘要

A wireless access point is deployed at a business location to provide a public wireless local area network (PWLAN) having access to the Internet. A computer at the business location facilitates transactions of selling access to the PWLN and facilitates transactions of goods or services other than access to the PWLAN. An on-site software component of the computer or by receiving a manually-entered input of the amount paid. An on-site password generator issues a password to access the PWLAN based on a transaction for PWLAN access. An on-site authentication component and an on-site timeout component act to determine whether to allow or deny an attempt to access the PWLAN based on a password received by the wireless access point and based on whether the received password has an associated amount of remaining time of PWLAN access.