[xorcist]

How does a captive portal help with throttling or locking out users? Is the idea that the user could just recycle their MAC and be let in again, well the same thing applies for captive portals.

In general, someone needs to take a quick look it the development time and customer support involved really can be motivated from the extra earnings. The trend is that fewer and fewer bother, and just see complimentary wifi as a value add instead.

Airports, cruise ships, and other places where it does make economic sense are better served by real things like 802.11x and per-user QR codes.