In message <Pine.NEB.4.53.0308121656270.1749@forsaken.i.purplei.com>, David Bro
wnlee writes:
>On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Mike Parson wrote:
>
>> > They want each room to be servce via DHCP, but also want them to each have
>> > a dedicated IP for tracking/billing purposes.  So the question is, can
>> > this be done (a DHCP reserved IP for each switch port) with an "off the
>> > self" managed switch?
>>
>> If it's a managed switch, then you should get all kinds of flexibility.
>>
>> Default to leave the ports off, if they want access, call the desk,
>> desk turns it on, adds a charge to the room.  Part of the check-out
>> procedure is to turn the port back off.
>>
>> Or.
>>
>> SNMP.  Use something like MRTG/RRD to watch the switch, you see
>> traffic, they get billed.
>
>	I've seen hotels have some form of transparent proxy that
>	redirects all traffic to a web server which provides the
>	'hotel information' plus an option to enable full access
>	for the following 24 hours. Of course that only makes sense
>	if you want to give them the 'intranet' for free :)

We're going far afield, but I should note that Marriott (which uses 
STN, I believe) has switched from that model to that model *or* "tell 
the front desk".  I suspect that they were running into too many 
support problems with people who didn't have Javascript enabled, people 
whose Web browsers were configured to use proxy serves, people whose 
VPN clients wouldn't let them at the raw Web, etc.  (And that says 
nothing of their buggy dhcp server -- I had to hack dhclient to make it 
ignore the bad cruft in the, cruft that Windows didn't seem to 
notice...)


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb