WISP / Captive Portal

I've been looking several different options for providing a captive
portal for would-be customers to pay for service, but I've not been
happy with any thus far. I've looked at options such as:

http://www.demarctech.com/products/r...ve-ipnpsg.html
http://www.viatornetworks.com/
http://www.nomadix.com/products/usg.asp

But none seem to be an all-in-one solution that I'd like to find for
what we're doing. The closest thing seems to be LinSpot for Mac OS X,
but we are not willing to give them a percent of each sale for various
reasons. I've also heard that LinSpot's performance is somewhat under
par as well.

At any rate, we need to support 1000-3000 simultaneous users and would
like more of a software package that we can install on a server thus
allowing it to be more scalable over time.

We would also like to accept not only credit card payments, but paypal
and also allow customers to actually make in person or snail mail
payments and thus enter the paid status ourselves to extend monthly
service.

Anyone with experience in this direction or advice on the best
packages available? Even if there are no real "good" alternatives
available (meaning that price vs. functionality is not there) then I'd
be willing to build my own solution if some pointers would be offered
in that direction as I'm a software and web developer as well.

On 8 Jul 2004 07:53:39 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (lists) wrote:

>I've been looking several different options for providing a captive
>portal for would-be customers to pay for service, but I've not been
>happy with any thus far.

If you wanna craft your own, go to:
http://sourceforge.net/search/
and inscribe "hostspot" in the search key. There are several likely
prospects. Most are built on NoCatAuth:
http://nocat.net/

However, I haven't seen any that have built in credit card handling.
That's usually the function of a remotely located ecommerce server,
where security can be centrally controlled. There's also WiFi
specific billing and credit card handling software:
http://www.alepo.com/wireless-lan-bi...software.shtml
http://www.i-table.com/serv01.htm
which might be useful.

Also, for a user to send money via PayPal, they need to have
previously established an account with PayPal that's tied to a credit
card or bank account. If they have these, you could simply have them
go to Paypal, login under their account number, and send you some
money. When the emailed receipt arrives from PayPal to your mailbox,
a script would authorize the session or provide a timed password.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

www.dnsredirector.com will let you do this


"lists" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> I've been looking several different options for providing a captive
> portal for would-be customers to pay for service, but I've not been
> happy with any thus far. I've looked at options such as:
>
> http://www.demarctech.com/products/r...ve-ipnpsg.html
> http://www.viatornetworks.com/
> http://www.nomadix.com/products/usg.asp
>
> But none seem to be an all-in-one solution that I'd like to find for
> what we're doing. The closest thing seems to be LinSpot for Mac OS X,
> but we are not willing to give them a percent of each sale for various
> reasons. I've also heard that LinSpot's performance is somewhat under
> par as well.
>
> At any rate, we need to support 1000-3000 simultaneous users and would
> like more of a software package that we can install on a server thus
> allowing it to be more scalable over time.
>
> We would also like to accept not only credit card payments, but paypal
> and also allow customers to actually make in person or snail mail
> payments and thus enter the paid status ourselves to extend monthly
> service.
>
> Anyone with experience in this direction or advice on the best
> packages available? Even if there are no real "good" alternatives
> available (meaning that price vs. functionality is not there) then I'd
> be willing to build my own solution if some pointers would be offered
> in that direction as I'm a software and web developer as well.

Take a look at http://www.sputnik.com/

-- Paul


"lists" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> I've been looking several different options for providing a captive
> portal for would-be customers to pay for service, but I've not been
> happy with any thus far. I've looked at options such as:
>
> http://www.demarctech.com/products/r...ve-ipnpsg.html
> http://www.viatornetworks.com/
> http://www.nomadix.com/products/usg.asp
>
> But none seem to be an all-in-one solution that I'd like to find for
> what we're doing. The closest thing seems to be LinSpot for Mac OS X,
> but we are not willing to give them a percent of each sale for various
> reasons. I've also heard that LinSpot's performance is somewhat under
> par as well.
>
> At any rate, we need to support 1000-3000 simultaneous users and would
> like more of a software package that we can install on a server thus
> allowing it to be more scalable over time.
>
> We would also like to accept not only credit card payments, but paypal
> and also allow customers to actually make in person or snail mail
> payments and thus enter the paid status ourselves to extend monthly
> service.
>
> Anyone with experience in this direction or advice on the best
> packages available? Even if there are no real "good" alternatives
> available (meaning that price vs. functionality is not there) then I'd
> be willing to build my own solution if some pointers would be offered
> in that direction as I'm a software and web developer as well.

Take a look at FirstSpot ( http://patronsoft.com/firstspot ). It is a
Windows-based package and there is a free trial.