Coin-Operated Hotspot Brings Back Memories

Here's an idea that brings back memories of coin-operated kiosks of one sort of another that you used to see in booths in restaurants - and still do in retro-style ones - a coin-operated wi-fi kiosk. The product is by Handlink, which says it:

mainly designs, develops and manufactures highly secure and reliable wired/wireless LAN products that integrate seamlessly into Public Area Networks known as "Hot Spot".

The 802.11b/g KS-852 kiosk (which measures 290 x 420 x 250 mm, and is patented in Taiwan and China) prints out a slip with logon instructions once you enter the proper number of coins. The slip will include:

• Account username and password
• Account purchase date and time
• Account expiry date and time
• Access duration
• Wi-Fi ESSID

Once your time is up, the account is deleted and your connection terminated. You then have to pop in some more coins. It's unclear from their brochure (.PDF) if you can put in more coins in the middle of a session to extend it. And you'd think since it's connected to the Internet you could PayPal more funds to it, but apparently not ... feature request, anyone?