How To Set Up A Wireless Access Point For A Coffeeshop

[girlx]

my friend has a wireless router for his own use at his coffeeshop. he would like to charge customers who come in to use it, say 100 baht an hour or something like that. how would one set this up? he needs some sort of software to time the usage and calculate the cost, also something to help him avoid changing the WEP access code every time a customer uses it... any advice? is this legal by the way?

[rio666uk]

a quick search on the net will give you an idea of what direction to head in... basically you need something like Internet Cafe Kiosk Software, or something Internet Cafe Manager - these will allow you to time and charge the punters as well as acting as a firewall, and download manager, restricting what pages can be viewed etc etc etc

i planned, setup and installed a fairly large wireless LAN where i work - i use WPA for the encryption with 10 minute key rotation.. that is one set WPA Pre-Shared Key that you install on all laptops using the wifi network - the wifi access points themselves then change the Key every 10mins to something else.

how you would do this for users coming in with their own laptops i dont know - i think thats what you were asking?

[girlx]

yeah that's what i mean, people who bring in their own laptops. the WEP rotation sounds useful, how did you set that up, was it part of your Internet Cafe Manager? I will look for that...

[Rice_King]

I was contemplating using CHILLISPOT hotspot management to set up an internet cafe awhile back. (Never quite got around to doing it though.) I'll present it here for your reading pleasure. The wiki mentions SkyRove. I think that might be the route (SkyRove) I would take if I were to do it tomorrow. VERY simple!

Edited February 28, 2007 by Rice_King

[monty]

Check out: http://www.2hotspot.com/

and: http://www.publicip.net/

Both are freeware solutions for running semi commercial or commercial hotspots.

The first is windows based, the second is Linux based. Both need a pc (can be an old slow one) sitting between the actual internet access and the rest of your public network.

2hotspot I have no experience with, zonecd I have used and works pretty well, and is around for a very long time already so the is a very big support base and forum to help you out. Don't get scared by the linux part, since all works pretty much automatically and all setting are done on a webpage...

[steffi]

Isn't the key the ip address and dhcp that's used? usually you buy a prepaid block of time and you get an ip address or a presence on the network until your time is up and then your ip no longer works on the network and you're booted off.

Check out: http://www.2hotspot.com/

and: http://www.publicip.net/

Both are freeware solutions for running semi commercial or commercial hotspots.

The first is windows based, the second is Linux based. Both need a pc (can be an old slow one) sitting between the actual internet access and the rest of your public network.

2hotspot I have no experience with, zonecd I have used and works pretty well, and is around for a very long time already so the is a very big support base and forum to help you out. Don't get scared by the linux part, since all works pretty much automatically and all setting are done on a webpage...

[monty]

Isn't the key the ip address and dhcp that's used? usually you buy a prepaid block of time and you get an ip address or a presence on the network until your time is up and then your ip no longer works on the network and you're booted off.

These systems work a bit different. Basically they are called captive portals. Anybody going on the network will get a dhcp assigned ip address, with as gateway your box running the hotspot software.

When they try to access the internet, they will get shown a page with some info on the hotspot (e.g. where to buy time etc...) and can enter a username and password if they had registered already.

This username/password combo will be checked against a database residing on a server in the USA (both 2hotspot and zonecd run servers somewhere in the US where you can manage your own userdatabase, adding users, adding time, setting speedlimits for certain users etc) after which that database will order the box to give access to that user or to tell them they ran out of hours etc...

As I said before I have no experience with 2hotspot, but zonecd is up and running for several years, and they finance the free version out of the revenue from a commercial version of the zonecd version (which is obviously more sophisticated and with live support etc) so you stand a big chance it will remain free.

Since as far as I know 2hotspot does not have an operating commercial counterpart, they could decide at anytime to start to charge you for the use of their servers...

[oswaldcassidy]

my friend has a wireless router for his own use at his coffeeshop. he would like to charge customers who come in to use it, say 100 baht an hour or something like that. how would one set this up? he needs some sort of software to time the usage and calculate the cost, also something to help him avoid changing the WEP access code every time a customer uses it... any advice? is this legal by the way?

If you offered free wi fi you might find that you get a lot more customers my friend did and the cafe next door to him is now always empty does that tell you something !!!!!!!!!!!

[bino]

is this legal by the way?

This part of your post interests me.

I've considered doing the same thing with the wireless network in our office, but wondered what the potential legal risks are. For example, could one of the customers using the wireless service get tagged for trying to access blocked websites- gambling, porn, etc? Will the Boys in Brown come calling on me?

[monty]

One of the advantages of putting something like zoneCD in between the customers and the internet, is that it can do content filtering.

You can also block certain ports, or only give access to certain ports so that nobody can eat up all your connection with p2p clients, or use your internet access to send out spam...

[rio666uk]

yeah that's what i mean, people who bring in their own laptops. the WEP rotation sounds useful, how did you set that up, was it part of your Internet Cafe Manager? I will look for that...

not sure that WEP supports key rotation - and i wouldnt recommend using WEP either - WPA is the way to go.

setting this up was all part of configuring the wireless access point - we dont need to use software like you would - either way it should be simple enough to do.