I wonder if these will be capable of lending spare (encrypted) bandwidth to anonymous mobile devices. I.e., can Google Fi[1] users benefit from Wi-Fi when walking past a house that has an OnHub running?
Every time a company has tried to do open wifi sharing there's been a lot of kickback. Mostly because it's opt out instead of opt in but that's put a big damper on anyone doing similar things.
I think BT in the UK (one of the main ISPs) do this:
>"When you buy any BT broadband package you receive unlimited FREE access to BT Wi-fi, the UK's largest wi-fi network, plus millions of Fon hotspots overseas. Simply use the BT broadband email address and password you were given when you joined us.
>"To get the FREE service you'll share a small, separate and secure portion of your home broadband connection with other members of the BT Wi-fi community. This is what creates the millions of hotspots you can use out and about." (http://www.btwifi.com/help/login-with-bt/help-broadband-cust...) //
In other words "you can't buy a BT broadband package without giving your router to be used as part of our wi-fi network". Marketing, probably most users don't realise they're part of the "wi-fi network"?
What I really want to see is an 'opt-in' service that allows you to use other peoples' networks if you opt-in to sharing your's. It should be extremely easy to opt-in, and a message should be displayed asking you to opt-in when you try to sign in to someone else's network.
Also, the guest network traffic needs to be sent over a vpn, so you are not responsible for it / don't have to deal with people torrenting, etc on your network. And it should be low priority traffic.
That's the problem they need to solve, opt-in and making it easy and visible enough to get enough people to enable it to make it actually useful.
A VPN or similar system to make sure you're not getting accused of things their free wifi is being used for too is a good idea. Not sure if anyone has done that yet in the various implementations.
Comcast does this under the "xfinitywifi" network name as a default setup for anybody who uses the standard cable modem/router-in-one box, with thousands and thousands of access points: http://wifi.xfinity.com/
Maybe in the US. In the UK its the default on any router from the biggest telco, and the biggest cable provider are turning it on imminently. I've yet to hear anyone complain about it.
[1] https://fi.google.com/about/