I'm sorry but
if I'm going to have "look at me I'm base station NETGEAR, I'm accepting all connections, you're welcome" penetrating my skull at 2.4GHz I really fail to see why I'm beyond my rights to connect to this service.
This is not theft at any practical level. If I phone my neighbour and as such make use of their phone line rental and equipment am I committing a crime. No. Because by paying phone rental they have implied permission for others to connect to this service. As such leaving their base station totally unsecured expresses permission.
It should be plainly clear to anyone if they buy a wireless router then connect there equipment without any sort of authorisation that so can anyone else. If you are paying by the byte, its your responsibility to secure it.