Question : Give public access to our wireless network?

Good afternoon,

I have been aksed to provide wireless access for guests visiting our school and I do not know the best ways to do this.

I have 60 x exisitng Cisco 1200 series autonomous AP's and a single SSID defined. I also have 12 x Cisco 1242 APs defined and these are controlled via a Cisco 5500 controller.
All the staff and students connect via WEP and their browsers are pointed to the local proxy server which authenticates them via LDAP and windows authentication.

We have to force all users through one proxy or another so I am struggling to see how to enable guest access without having to configure a script etc that will populate their IE settings and WEP.

I know hotels can't do this so assume they must have some kind of server setup that people can point their browsers to in order to authenticate etc?
I don't want to charge, but I probably need to know who has logged into the wireless network and what internet sites they've visited. How do they get to a website in the first place without wireless connectivity or the WEP key?

Do i have to setup a separate SSID without security so they can access the website? HOw would I keep people away from the existing network resources? Some of these users maybe users of the system already so would have network credentilas, but I don't want them on the network, as such, with their own personal laptops. But I would like them to be able to connect to get to the internet etc. Hope that makes sense!

As you can tell, I have no idea which is the way forward.

Please ask any questions as I'm sure I haven't included enough info!

My network is a 2003 domain .local

Many thanks for any help

Answer : Give public access to our wireless network?

Yes, I would definitely keep your array of Cisco APs in place and use your existing wireless infrastructure.  As for getting the proxy populated into your public visitor's browsers, that will be a little more complex.  Your domain PCs of course can easily get the proxy information either through scripting or Group Policy, but public PCs will need a little more coaxing.  We currently use a Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) that manages our entire wireless infrastructure.  The WCS isn't exactly cheap, but with so many wireless devices in your network, it might be cheaper in the long run to purchase a single device to control everything vs. managing each AP manually.  

The Cisco WCS will also enforce a proxy for public users so you won't have to worry about any special scripting or additional APs for a separate hotspot.  Plus your public users will also get a screen similar to a hotel or airport that they have to acknowledge prior to using your network for Internet access.  Your corporate compliance people will love you for this :)