Wireless APs in Homebrew Coffee Shops?

An anonymous reader writes "Having seen lots of complaints about the overpriced T-Mobile Wireless APs in Starbucks ($10/hr) got me thinking about setting up a wireless AP for the small, family-owned coffeeshop in my town under the tip jar model. I'm assuming ~$100 for the router, ~$500 for a PC to use to control quotas (to prevent over-zealous Kazaa users, block spammers and script kiddies and other would-be abusers) - but what software should I be using? Do enough people have 802.11a/g cards that it would be worth it to invest in that rather than an 802.11b router?" Has anyone considered making a Linux distribution for use by cybercafes, to handle wireless access and anything else such an outfit might need?

"Since this is a medium (50,000-ish) size town, and pretty much everyone in the coffee shop is a regular, would a tip jar model work? I'm figuring suggest a donation - what should I set that at?

Finally, keep in mind that the owner is not a geek - I'd be doing this when not studying (I'm a college student), so this would be set up over the summer, and most of the maintenance would be done on the weekends and/or via SSH.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated."

Comments

Check out Austin wireless

[yar]

http://www.austinwireless.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi
T hey've got several low-cost setups all around the Austin area.

use a FreeBSD Access Point

[Chuck Bucket]

Get a WiFi card (I got a Netgear MA311 refurb from Fry's for 30$), an old PC, configure it running FreeBSD to serve as an access point for your wireless network. Here's a great HOWTO:

Configuring a FreeBSD Access Point for Your Wireless Network

CB

NoCatAuth is all you need

[specht]

See the Linux Journal article at http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6887

Re:I think your estimates are way too high

[tallman68]

Might as well stick with b, if a b/g radio sees a b signal, the speed drops for all. Unless you hard set it to "g-only" then you lose most of your "customers".

Unless you want to put in 2 radios, but this is tip jar.

Personal Telco Project of Portland Oregon

[tomwhore]

A lot of what your talking about has been deployed to over 20 buisness locations and a horde more home sites here in Portland Oregon by a group called the Personal Telco Project.

http://www.personaltelco.net

We use NoCat on linux based boxes and it covers most of what your looking to do. You can set up Auth or simply a Splash, you can do throttling, shaping and the like, you can set up local content areas for biz and community use.

Its amazing what older PCs and low cost APs can do. Most of the stuff is easy to install, the few rough spots, like NoCat, have been feild tested and methodologies have been crafted to make it easier to set and and maintain.

Come on over to the url posted above for more information or head to #ptp on irc.freenode.net and ask for more info.

Re:wep key on receipt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't block UDP/500<->UDP/500 (ISAKMP), UDP/4500<->UDP/4500 (NAT-T), IP protocol 50 (ESP) and IP protocol 51 (AH). Same goes for TCP/1723 and IP protocol 47 (GRE). You don't want to keep out business people who need to access the company (IPSec/PPTP) VPN.