How to add paid public access to my Wi-Fi?

I own a restaurant in a mall. We have Wi-Fi for our own office use. I'd
like this to double as a Hotspot for mall shoppers and restaurant customers.
As I understand it, all we need to do is implement software for logging on
customers and collecting payment. Can anyone point me in the right
direction?

Thanks,
George

Taking a moment's reflection, George mused:
|
| I own a restaurant in a mall. We have Wi-Fi for our own office use.
| I'd like this to double as a Hotspot for mall shoppers and restaurant
| customers. As I understand it, all we need to do is implement
| software for logging on customers and collecting payment. Can anyone
| point me in the right direction?

www.google.com

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:57:35 GMT, "George"
<look@signature_to_reply.com> wrote:

>I own a restaurant in a mall. We have Wi-Fi for our own office use. I'd
>like this to double as a Hotspot for mall shoppers and restaurant customers.
>As I understand it, all we need to do is implement software for logging on
>customers and collecting payment. Can anyone point me in the right
>direction?

Well, you have some decisions to make first. Since you're doing this
for $$$money$$$, youl need to decide if you're going to handle the
billing, handle the cash, or farm it out to some service company such
as Boingo, T-Mobile, or iPass. The service companies are a nice deal
in that all you supply is the hardware and bandwidth. They deal with
the credit cards and authorizations. You get a check in the mail
every month.
http://www.ipass.com/partners/partne...eprovider.html
The revenue isn't huge, but methinks worth the effort.
http://www.sputnik.com

If you're really greedy, there's always the Wi-Fi Vending Machine:
http://www.instanthotspot.com/ks7_wifi_kiosk.htm

If you want to do it yourself, you need to decide if you want to
assemble the system from components, buy a read to run system
(including local billing), or just hire a hot-spot installation
company to set it up for you.

Ready to run systems such as:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282

http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...fi-hotspot.php
are kinda pricy, but work well enough if you can manage the system
yourself.

If you want to go cheap, you can configure a Linksys WRT54G to play
hotspot. For example:

http://www.wave-storm.com/en/index.p...icro%20HotSpot
The features are in the router, but you'll need to setup a captive
portal, probably based on NoCatAuth:
http://nocat.net

I suggest searching for "hotspot billing", "hotspot equipment", and
"captive portal" using Google.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

Thank you, Jeff. Good stuff. I'll follow your leads.

George



--
Email replies to:
"Jeff Liebermann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:57:35 GMT, "George"
> <look@signature_to_reply.com> wrote:
>
> >I own a restaurant in a mall. We have Wi-Fi for our own office use. I'd
> >like this to double as a Hotspot for mall shoppers and restaurant
customers.
> >As I understand it, all we need to do is implement software for logging
on
> >customers and collecting payment. Can anyone point me in the right
> >direction?
>
> Well, you have some decisions to make first. Since you're doing this
> for $$$money$$$, youl need to decide if you're going to handle the
> billing, handle the cash, or farm it out to some service company such
> as Boingo, T-Mobile, or iPass. The service companies are a nice deal
> in that all you supply is the hardware and bandwidth. They deal with
> the credit cards and authorizations. You get a check in the mail
> every month.
> http://www.ipass.com/partners/partne...eprovider.html
> The revenue isn't huge, but methinks worth the effort.
> http://www.sputnik.com
>
> If you're really greedy, there's always the Wi-Fi Vending Machine:
> http://www.instanthotspot.com/ks7_wifi_kiosk.htm
>
> If you want to do it yourself, you need to decide if you want to
> assemble the system from components, buy a read to run system
> (including local billing), or just hire a hot-spot installation
> company to set it up for you.
>
> Ready to run systems such as:
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282
>
> http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...fi-hotspot.php
> are kinda pricy, but work well enough if you can manage the system
> yourself.
>
> If you want to go cheap, you can configure a Linksys WRT54G to play
> hotspot. For example:
>
>
http://www.wave-storm.com/en/index.p...icro%20HotSpot
> The features are in the router, but you'll need to setup a captive
> portal, probably based on NoCatAuth:
> http://nocat.net
>
> I suggest searching for "hotspot billing", "hotspot equipment", and
> "captive portal" using Google.
>
>
> --
> # Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
> # 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> # (E-Mail Removed)
> # (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 07:00:27 GMT, "George"
<look@signature_to_reply.com> wrote:

>Thank you, Jeff. Good stuff. I'll follow your leads.
>George

I forgot to mention the "dark side" of hot spot ownership. I've had
to deal with each of these. All are major time wasters.

1. Viruses, Trojans, and worms. Customers arrive with worm or Trojan
infected machines that try to attack the other customers or monopolize
all the bandwidth.

2. File sharing and Bittorrent. These are capable of monopolizing
all your bandwidth. Same with users that go to free hot spots to
download huge updates from Microsloth and others. Some form of
bandwidth management is a must.

3. Spammers. These usually sit outside in a van with direction
antennas and use your hot spot to spew their junk to the world. I
identified one of them and nearly got run over for my trouble. Local
District Attorney wouldn't prosecute without a positive ID.
Monitoring traffic on port 25 for abuse with Snort is a good idea.

4. Campers. These are people that sit for 8+ hours per day, sipping
one cup of coffee, and surfing. The unwritten rule is that users of
the wireless must buy something, but most do not. When confronted,
they usually get irate and mumble something about having bought
something a few days ago. I don't think you'll have the problem in a
restaurant, but it's serious in a coffee shop. Also, note that many
gargantuan laptops will occupy the equivalent table space of several
customers. Don't assume you're immune because the customer is paying.
Monthly plans are flat rate. Several local hot spots turn off the
wireless at 6PM to discourage campers.

5. Neighbors. Many residents in the neighborhood believe that they
can get free broadband service by simply installing a big directional
antenna and using your bandwidth. With for pay wireless hotspot
service, they may actually obtain an account. I've found it best to
identify the culprits and cut a deal with them. In two cases, I have
them helping to police and monitor the system in trade for bandwidth.

6. Tech support. Whenever the system hiccups, everyone seems to
drift towards the cashier or hostess to ask "is the system down"?
Having someone waste time checking the wireless is a big time burner.
I went to one establishment that added "tech support" to the posted
menu.

[Drivel: I've been tempted to design an automatic ping probe box with
big lights to indicate if the wireless is up, down, or constipated.
Maybe a moving graph display with the network traffic in/out
displayed. Yet another product idea. Will they ever end?]

7. Slip and spill. Some customers seem to think the proprietor is
responsible for their clumsiness. Coffee in the keyboard and dropping
the laptop are two I've seen. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has
been sued, but there have been attempts by customer to recover repair
and replacement costs on the grounds that the coffee shop did not
provide adequate protection against their stupidity.

8. 802.11 phones. These are not too common but I predict will be
epidemic shortly. They act exactly like a cell phone, but use 802.11
wireless and VoIP instead. The users act exactly like the standard
variety cell phone users and yell into the phones disrupting everyone.
It's worse with 802.11 because the shared bandwidth is not guaranteed
resulting in frequent dropouts, which inevitably inspires more yelling
into the phone. At this time, the laptop users have Skype and other
VoIP service that used with a headset and a laptop. These generally
do NOT create rude customers because the side tone (earphone audio) is
sufficiently load that the user is not induced to yell. However, the
VoIP phones are apparently designed by the same [insert appropriate
expletive] that designs cell phones with insufficient side tone,
resulting in the inevitable yelling customer. Be prepared to have
your establishment turned into a giant, multi-abuser telephone booth.

9. Interference. On problem with mall's is that everyone seems to
have a hot spot. It's also common for the mall to install wireless,
along with any municipality, government entity, and WISP (wireless
ISP). We have a local mall with such a situation, where I estimate a
density of about 5 access points per acre (200x200ft). On large
department store has some rediculous number of access points to cover
their floor space, that generates most of their own interference.
Some nit wit installed several wireless repeaters that generate even
more intereference. I strongly suggest you do a site survey to see
what's already there before installing.

10. Microwave ovens. Microwave ovens and 802.11 do not mix well.
Restraunts and coffee shops use microwave ovens. It's always fun to
sit in a coffee shop and hear all the laptop users utter a collective
groan as someone nukes their meal. One coffee shop intentionally
heats a glass of water when a noisy VoIP user needs a clue. Keeping
the door seals clean, and proper location are a big help, but the
interference never seems to go away completely.

Now, do you still wanna setup a hot spot?


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff, the depth of your knowledge and experience with wireless never ceases
to amaze me.
You should expand this post and submit it to a magazine.
I never imagined that a public hotspot would spawn such problems and bad
manors.

Would you share the source of the utility programs you mentioned?

William Lee


"Jeff Liebermann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 07:00:27 GMT, "George"
> <look@signature_to_reply.com> wrote:
>
>>Thank you, Jeff. Good stuff. I'll follow your leads.
>>George
>
> I forgot to mention the "dark side" of hot spot ownership. I've had
> to deal with each of these. All are major time wasters.
>
> 1. Viruses, Trojans, and worms. Customers arrive with worm or Trojan
> infected machines that try to attack the other customers or monopolize
> all the bandwidth.
>
> 2. File sharing and Bittorrent. These are capable of monopolizing
> all your bandwidth. Same with users that go to free hot spots to
> download huge updates from Microsloth and others. Some form of
> bandwidth management is a must.
>
> 3. Spammers. These usually sit outside in a van with direction
> antennas and use your hot spot to spew their junk to the world. I
> identified one of them and nearly got run over for my trouble. Local
> District Attorney wouldn't prosecute without a positive ID.
> Monitoring traffic on port 25 for abuse with Snort is a good idea.
>
> 4. Campers. These are people that sit for 8+ hours per day, sipping
> one cup of coffee, and surfing. The unwritten rule is that users of
> the wireless must buy something, but most do not. When confronted,
> they usually get irate and mumble something about having bought
> something a few days ago. I don't think you'll have the problem in a
> restaurant, but it's serious in a coffee shop. Also, note that many
> gargantuan laptops will occupy the equivalent table space of several
> customers. Don't assume you're immune because the customer is paying.
> Monthly plans are flat rate. Several local hot spots turn off the
> wireless at 6PM to discourage campers.
>
> 5. Neighbors. Many residents in the neighborhood believe that they
> can get free broadband service by simply installing a big directional
> antenna and using your bandwidth. With for pay wireless hotspot
> service, they may actually obtain an account. I've found it best to
> identify the culprits and cut a deal with them. In two cases, I have
> them helping to police and monitor the system in trade for bandwidth.
>
> 6. Tech support. Whenever the system hiccups, everyone seems to
> drift towards the cashier or hostess to ask "is the system down"?
> Having someone waste time checking the wireless is a big time burner.
> I went to one establishment that added "tech support" to the posted
> menu.
>
> [Drivel: I've been tempted to design an automatic ping probe box with
> big lights to indicate if the wireless is up, down, or constipated.
> Maybe a moving graph display with the network traffic in/out
> displayed. Yet another product idea. Will they ever end?]
>
> 7. Slip and spill. Some customers seem to think the proprietor is
> responsible for their clumsiness. Coffee in the keyboard and dropping
> the laptop are two I've seen. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has
> been sued, but there have been attempts by customer to recover repair
> and replacement costs on the grounds that the coffee shop did not
> provide adequate protection against their stupidity.
>
> 8. 802.11 phones. These are not too common but I predict will be
> epidemic shortly. They act exactly like a cell phone, but use 802.11
> wireless and VoIP instead. The users act exactly like the standard
> variety cell phone users and yell into the phones disrupting everyone.
> It's worse with 802.11 because the shared bandwidth is not guaranteed
> resulting in frequent dropouts, which inevitably inspires more yelling
> into the phone. At this time, the laptop users have Skype and other
> VoIP service that used with a headset and a laptop. These generally
> do NOT create rude customers because the side tone (earphone audio) is
> sufficiently load that the user is not induced to yell. However, the
> VoIP phones are apparently designed by the same [insert appropriate
> expletive] that designs cell phones with insufficient side tone,
> resulting in the inevitable yelling customer. Be prepared to have
> your establishment turned into a giant, multi-abuser telephone booth.
>
> 9. Interference. On problem with mall's is that everyone seems to
> have a hot spot. It's also common for the mall to install wireless,
> along with any municipality, government entity, and WISP (wireless
> ISP). We have a local mall with such a situation, where I estimate a
> density of about 5 access points per acre (200x200ft). On large
> department store has some rediculous number of access points to cover
> their floor space, that generates most of their own interference.
> Some nit wit installed several wireless repeaters that generate even
> more intereference. I strongly suggest you do a site survey to see
> what's already there before installing.
>
> 10. Microwave ovens. Microwave ovens and 802.11 do not mix well.
> Restraunts and coffee shops use microwave ovens. It's always fun to
> sit in a coffee shop and hear all the laptop users utter a collective
> groan as someone nukes their meal. One coffee shop intentionally
> heats a glass of water when a noisy VoIP user needs a clue. Keeping
> the door seals clean, and proper location are a big help, but the
> interference never seems to go away completely.
>
> Now, do you still wanna setup a hot spot?
>
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> 3. Spammers. ...
> Monitoring traffic on port 25 for abuse with Snort is a good idea.

SBC blocks port 25, why not you? ;-)

> 4. Campers. ...
> Monthly plans are flat rate. Several local hot spots turn off the
> wireless at 6PM to discourage campers.

I noticed that downtown San Jose. I never went in to the business, I'd
just park outside. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and then I
realized it was consistent with time of day.

> 5. Neighbors. ...
> With for pay wireless hotspot service, they may actually obtain an
> account. I've found it best to identify the culprits and cut a deal with
> them.

That would be a friend of mine. Set up the USB-dongle in a can to shoot
down the street at a paid UPS store. The UPS store always seemed like such
an odd venue for a hotspot. Nobody's going to sit there and surf.
The residential usage pattern would be after UPS store hours, so it
wouldn't impact their business day much. It was also quite apparent that
someone else was using the bandwidth, sometimes.

> 8. 802.11 phones. ...

Sort of "me", currently. I have a Cisco Softphone on my laptop, and a USB
headset. As nearly as I can tell, it's about 10KbpS while talking.
That shouldn't be a noticeable load on a network. Running downloads while
I'm talking to a customer doesn't seem to hurt the telephone quality,
although it does occasionally go into a motorboat sounding digital breakup,
with no obvious usage at my point of entry. I don't talk on the phone
while in a coffee shop, so that social annoyance isn't part of the mix,
just the WiFi usage. (see #4, above.)

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:57:35 GMT, "George"
> <look@signature_to_reply.com> wrote:
>
> >I own a restaurant in a mall. We have Wi-Fi for our own office use. I'd
> >like this to double as a Hotspot for mall shoppers and restaurant customers.
> >As I understand it, all we need to do is implement software for logging on
> >customers and collecting payment. Can anyone point me in the right
> >direction?
>
> Well, you have some decisions to make first. Since you're doing this
> for $$$money$$$, youl need to decide if you're going to handle the
> billing, handle the cash, or farm it out to some service company such
> as Boingo, T-Mobile, or iPass. The service companies are a nice deal
> in that all you supply is the hardware and bandwidth. They deal with
> the credit cards and authorizations. You get a check in the mail
> every month.
> http://www.ipass.com/partners/partne...eprovider.html
> The revenue isn't huge, but methinks worth the effort.
> http://www.sputnik.com
>
> If you're really greedy, there's always the Wi-Fi Vending Machine:
> http://www.instanthotspot.com/ks7_wifi_kiosk.htm
>
> If you want to do it yourself, you need to decide if you want to
> assemble the system from components, buy a read to run system
> (including local billing), or just hire a hot-spot installation
> company to set it up for you.
>
> Ready to run systems such as:
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282
>
> http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...fi-hotspot.php
> are kinda pricy, but work well enough if you can manage the system
> yourself.
>
> If you want to go cheap, you can configure a Linksys WRT54G to play
> hotspot. For example:
>
> http://www.wave-storm.com/en/index.p...icro%20HotSpot
> The features are in the router, but you'll need to setup a captive
> portal, probably based on NoCatAuth:
> http://nocat.net
>
> I suggest searching for "hotspot billing", "hotspot equipment", and
> "captive portal" using Google.
>
>
>
I just recently returned from the Outer Banks in NC and I visited a
coffee shop that had wireless for $4/15 minutes. All the did was use a
Linksys router with a password. If you wanted to use it, they gave you
the password and then charged you for the time that you were on line. I
didn't ask if they used anything special but I just entered the password
in the WEP setting for my laptop and it connected. It appeared that is
all they had set was WEP.
--
Robin
Charleston, WV

I suggest you check out FirstSpot ( http://patronsoft.com/firstspot ).
Apart from charges, it has features such as bandwidth throttling which
will help you to properly allocate resource within the hotspot.

Also, you can visit
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/2/prweb105986.htm for a similar case
reference.

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:10:29 -0400, Robin Brumfield
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I just recently returned from the Outer Banks in NC and I visited a
>coffee shop that had wireless for $4/15 minutes. All the did was use a
>Linksys router with a password.

EWRT is another WRT54G based firmware that's specifically designed for
creating wireless hot spots.
http://www.portless.net/menu/ewrt/

>If you wanted to use it, they gave you
>the password and then charged you for the time that you were on line. I
>didn't ask if they used anything special but I just entered the password
>in the WEP setting for my laptop and it connected. It appeared that is
>all they had set was WEP.

I've never seen anyone do it that way. All it takes is for the WEP
key to leak out and everyone gets to use it for free. They could
change the WEP key daily, but I doubt that most owners would do that
for more than a few weeks. You could probably do it successfully
without changeing the WEP key in a tourist area, where tourists
generally don't act as repeat customers for more than a few days.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS