I believe in free and open wifi. Ever since moving to my current appartment, I’ve kept my wireless network open for anyone to join.
Friends and colleagues tell me I’m nuts, and that I will go to jail because evil neighbours will download kiddie porn.
Today I’ve closed the access point. The network has become too popular. It is helplessly overloaded and has slowed to a crawl.
Sorry, neighbours! No more free internet.
Couldn’t you find a way to restrict the bandwidth used by other users? Anyway, I don’t see why you should fear legal consequences for what others are downloading. Plenty of people especially in East-Berlin leave their networks open as part of the “Freifunk” idea (a friend of mine profited from it when he moved to Friedrichshain).
http://de.fon.com/ could be a solution you might look for – they have got different models, Linus might be interesting ,-) for you. I use my la fonera mostly to get free access when being abroad, unlike your solutions, most of the legal issues are clear and acceptable.