By allowing total, complete and unfettered access to your network, you relinquish any and all control over who is able to use your system.  Nearby residents, passers by, motorists parked outside, taxi drivers, pedestrians; absolutely anyone will be able to access your Wi-Fi network without you having any control whatsoever. These could be perfectly normal people or members of society who don’t want to be traced.  In much the same way as you can never stop criminals breaking in to your house, by locking the door you have a level of security and a deterrent.  People only enter if you invite them. If you leave your door wide open then you can expect trouble at some point.  The same goes for your Wi-Fi.

ISPs are required, by law, to log all traffic for extended periods (12-18 months currently) and, if asked by the authorities, to disclose the origins of any suspicious activities or communications. If you do not take this precaution how will you explain the fact that an origin of suspicious traffic was traced back to one of your hotels and that you have no idea who was responsible? Granted, we can never pinpoint precisely who was using what, particularly with Wi-Fi, but you have control over who accesses the network. Generally speaking this will be trustworthy guests of your hotels.

There will, at some point in the future, be a requirement for providers of Internet services at a private level, i.e. hotels taking Internet services from an ISP (for example, Easynet) and distributing within the building (HSIA), to  log traffic in the same way as ISPs.  This legislation is called Lawful Intercept. The definition of Lawful Intercept, or LI for short, is as follows:

Lawful Intercept is a term used to describe the process by which law enforcement agencies conduct electronic surveillance of circuit and packet-mode communications as authorized by judicial or administrative order. The means and authority of conducting LI is often recorded in government legislation or regulatory mandates. Legislation and regulation are increasingly being adopted that require providers of public communication services (Service Providers) to design and implement their networks to explicitly support authorized electronic surveillance. Types of Service Providers who are subject to LI mandates, as well as the services included, vary greatly from country to country.

By retaining the requirement for guests to either have a Wireless reference linked to their room or to be given a password, we retain at least some ability to answer questions if ever the situation arose. Also, check the explanation on Wikipedia, or just give the subject a Google!

Totally free hotspots, with no control over access, are publicised on websites that list “all you can eat for nothing WiFi” on directories. How will this devalue your offering, particularly when you have paid for a nice fat pipe?  What will your high paying guests think if their bandwidth or general access is compromised by users not paying for the privilege of staying at one of your hotels? Rather than inconveniencing your guests, will they not feel more comfortable if access is controlled? In much the same way as airport security is an inconvenience, aren’t we all pleased with the added security and safety it delivers and the level of protection it offers?

If guests are able to access the Internet before firstly and virtually in almost all instances, acknowledging and accepting the “Terms of Use” which include “Acceptable Usage Policies” - effectively the “contract” - then hotels offering such uncontrolled access could be exposed to all manner of legalities if data is ever compromised. Here is another quote found while trawling the Internet:

There are also legal implications to unauthorised access to company systems, according to law firm Charles Russell. If an unauthorised person gains access through a wireless network, a company could face serious legal and commercial consequences if its clients' or business partners' confidential data were exposed, the law firm said.

"The country's hotels and waiting rooms are full of people rummaging through the contents of each others' laptops. The technical risks can be avoided by installing and using the necessary systems (RIEO), and the legal risks can also be minimised by including the necessary legal wording in business contract."

Robin Bynoe, partner at Charles Russell, also added:"Whenever Wi-Fi access is available, there are several organisations involved: the site owner, the service provider, the person with the laptop, their employer, the client or the contact with the valuable data. If yours is the only organisation that doesn't have the necessary wording in all relevant contracts and data is stolen, you could end up shouldering the whole of the liability for the loss."

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