This positive result in reviving depressed local economies has been repeated many times around the world by introducing such cooperative, complementary currencies in the area.
Now that wide-area wireless network operators recognize Wi-Fi hotspots as complementary to their advanced packet-data networks, they will end up owning or leasing most of today's hotspots and will build out coverage.
Josh Ryan Collins, of the New Economics Foundation, who helped launch the Brixton pound - one of a handful of complementary currencies designed to be spent in local shops within a specific area of the UK - also sounded a note of caution.