How to make tenants pay for WIFI when it's previously been free.

[Taylor Atkinson]

Facts:

-I am closing on a 42 unit mixed commercial (29) / Residential (13) property in Canada.

-The current owner has maintained this property to a very high standard, and has treated all of his tenants like family.

-Rents have not been increased (in some units) since 1997!!! They are currently below market value by roughly 30%

-Canada has been continuing its implementation of regulations to try and slow the market down. One of them being rent control increases favouring the tenants. For 2019 the allowable rent increase is inflation (2.5%).

-Currently the owner has most of the tenants as month to month. Regulations in Canada are an absolute pain to evict tenants without just cause, so increasing rent for current tenants will be a very slow process. 

-All tenants have free wifi included in their rent, yet not stated in their tenancy agreements. 

Plan:

-Upon closing, I would like to give notice to the tenants that wifi is no longer provided for free. It will now be charged at a discounted (relative to them getting their own wifi from a provider) monthly fee. 

Question:

-How do I implement a system which tenants cannot access the wifi without my permission. ie: like a hotel giving you a time expiring code? I need something which tenants cannot share with other tenants, otherwise one tenant will purchase the monthly code and share it with everyone else. I also need to keep it somewhat simple for accounting and cost purposes otherwise it will not be worth my time.

Thank you,

Taylor

[Mike McCarthy]

i don’t know any technical solution that will prohibit them sharing a password.

You can hand out passwords for each paid apartment, and each password can be used on a limit if 5 devices. But if they only have two, they have 3 to share. Or if they have kids and 7 devices, what then? Or if they have 5, but the computer breaks and they get a new one... you’ll end up becoming the IT support team too.

I like the idea, but unless you charge per connection or limit it, you’re stuck. Plus you’ll have to update the codes when people move, and probably once or twice during the year too to kick off ‘borrowers’

Might still be worthwhile. I know there are tools out there that do it.