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Wireless Hotspot Creation?
ezodon asks: "I have been tasked by management to submit a plan on creating a wireless hot-spot in several of our locations. Management would like to be able to charge for the wireless access from our customers. Because of the desire to charge, I have not been able to find any Open Source software, and just a few commercial offerings. I have checked out PublicIP and LessNetworks wireless management software, but neither has a direct billing option. We already have a merchant account and credit card machines at all of our locations. Can anyone in Slashdot land give me some recommendations on how to get this done?"
I'm in college, and recently to prevent anyone from the outside to connecting to the campus' wireless network they decided to use Perfigo's smart enforcer client, which requires one to login... I'm pretty sure the server for that thing can accomodate tracking time and or limiting time based on an account balance... Give it a kick.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
If you can do without the open source aspect of it, and embrace the world of capitalism, Colubris access controllers, and Airpath backend billing work very well together. The Colurbis even runs Linux.
www.colubris.com
www.airpath.com
If you can't figure out my address, just drop me an e-mail and I will explain.
You're going to charge us to use your system, right?
There's a reason you're finding it hard to find open source solutions. They do exist, though. I suggest offering free lifetime WiFi access to all helpful slashdot posters or hiring a consultant to set this up.
Normally, I'd gladly be more helpful, but in this case I won't. It's not that I'm trying to be a jerk, but rather that I don't feel like helping a jerk (not you necessarily, but your boss/management). Tell your boss you'd like to offer WiFi for free. What will he say? Probably something like, "why the hell would we do that?" So you want free help from me? I guess I must ask myself, "why the hell would I do that?"
..but sure as hell does my sniffer want to know where credit card numbers will be flying around.
I'd keep it off my main network and just get speakeasy dsl and use the free billing speakeasy provides for wifi. You can always hand out logins on site also.
NoCatAuth is what you are looking for. Authentication is required before access is granted beyond the local network with all traffic being redirected to a login page that you can specify.
My name is Tim_F and my boss just asked me to implement something that I know nothing about. Can you please tell me how to my job? I'm way too lazy to learn something new.
Free radius, step 1
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
I think this might be the kind of thing you are looking for: ZyXEL ZyAIR B-4000. It's basically an AP and receipt printer, with a few buttons on it. Via a web-based interface, you set the device up, and a clerk presses a button, and out pops a receipt you had to the user. They use the information on the receipt to log into the system, allowing their MAC to access the internet for a specified period of time.
I recommended this to a small shop, and they've been using it since with no problems. It's trivial to get set up, and the clerks selling the access don't need to be technical.
IIRC, you can also allow certain machines access all the time, use it as a normal NAT box for some devices and pay for others, etc.
Hope this helps...
what exactly is your business? How much are you planning to charge. In the long run it may cost you more to keep the pay system running than you actually make in revenue from the system. For example, I'm sure if starbucks could force you to buy something in order to use the wireless internet access they would, but they would probably lose more money in wasting employee time and printing receipts and creating a ticket system etc. than they would actually gain from the few people who just mooch off the system. Yeah, there are going to be those people, but if your business offers a good enough product, most people who want to use the internet will probably end up patrons as well.
I find it ironic that many penny pinchers actually waste more money penny pinching than they would by being a little more free with their money.
Monstar L
Maybe u wanna try http://www.mikrotik.com/2index.html linux based RouterOS. It's near to free, and very powerfull solution...
There are perfectly reasonable "Slashdot-friendly" reasons to provide such a setup. For example, say you have a company with different departments and you want to charge the individual departments for wireless access based on their usage. Just set up a system like he is describing but allow for billing based on cost centers or some such instead of charging credit cards. It would provide controlled access, nice security, and let the company distribute costs as needed.
Another example would be to provide a "limited" free, public access, while also providing for additional features and services to "subscribers". It could even help "novice" users by providing instructional "splash" screens while providing controlled access.
Just setting up an open access point would certainly provide access, but providing a richer system would help promote the company providing the access and provide more reasonable control to the access.
THAT's what I'm looking for: some simple system that fits "in-between" the AP and the Internet....
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I don't know how relevant or useful it is, but Linksys (groan) [offers a HotSpot in a box] (more details [here]).. Since it seems so easy to set-up, you might want to immediately start running this at one of the locations, then do your other custom solution at another, and see which one works better. If you get a lot of customers used to going to many HotSpots, then this solution could work as it is with Boingo. You could go the T-Mobile route as well.
Disclaimer: I do not know anything else about HotSpots.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Depending on what you are doing, it can be really hard to make the numbers come out profitably selling wifi. Just because you see it all over the place doesn't mean these outfits are making money on it. If you already have internet access, offering it for free to customers is nearly free to you: the price of an inexpensive wifi box and some bandwidth. However, billing and supporting billing, and supporting those who have paid for the service and demand you make it work, will cost you much more than supplying the service it self. Will you make enough to cover your extra expenses?
If wifi is a feature that will attract more business, then going the easy route (free service) will get you a nice indirect payoff without the hassles and buy you extra good will because you offer it for free.
That said, there can be a very good reason for charging by the clock in, say, a coffee shop: to keep people from parking themselves all day and making you their office. Sure, they will buy coffee, but not as much as that seat will if you turn it over ten times as often.
There is a new coffee shop near where I live (Sherman Cafe in Union Square, Somerville, MA, USA) that has free wireless. And sometimes it seems there are people parked there for the long haul, sitting in front of their computers. Are they staying longer because of the wireless? I don't know. A lot seem to be students writing papers, so maybe not. If they charged by the hour--and priced it in such a way that longer than one hour was discouraged--maybe they would make more money.
On the other hand, at Starbucks (which always seems to have someone charging for the wifi) regulars who subscribe might feel entitled to stay forever. Maybe Sherman Cafe, but offering it for free, guilts a few people into leaving sooner.
Anyway, consider that charging for wifi might be stupid. At least one big outfit has gone under and I expect others to follow. Following them isn't necessarily a recipe for success.
-kb
I work for a WISP and we use BlueSocket for authentication and security. Combine it with AirPath and it should fit the bill...although of course it's not free.
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
I have misfortune to own the wrv54g. It crashes regularly, and is the most unstable access point I've ever seen. If you really are interested in this solution, make sure to check out the wrv54g group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wrv54g *before* you buy.
You may stand to make more by offering Wi-Fi for free rather than charging it.
For example, if I drank coffee (I don't), I would pick a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi over a Starbucks that wanted to charge me. Thus the Wi-Fi becomes a loss leader.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I'm running a very small WISP and I have been working on software for years. I just haven't found the right combination of software to fit my wants. But I'm very close.
What I want is to have a Postgresql database server holding all the user information. I want wireless access, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and Webmail to get the authentication from the Postgresql server.
What I have is a Postgresql server holding the billing, account, and RADIUS data. m0n0wall is setup as a captured portal authenticating from the RADIUS server. I have m0n0wall running on Soekris and WRAP single board computers with mini-pci WIFI radios. I have Postfix setup to access the PGSQL database for authentication. I have POP3 setup using RADIUS. I can't find an IMAP server that works with either RADIUS or PGSQL (not from lack of trying). Since I don't have IMAP, I can't get webmail to work.
For billing, I'm using Modernbill. I don't really like it so I'm going to write my own billing software that works the way I want.
The problems I have run into is:
* Wireless card locks up when client goes into powersave mode.
* m0n0wall does not have anyway to detect problems and reboot.
* I have a Pebble Linux system running that works great but NoCAT does not work very well. It has a nasty login bug that look like will never be fixed. With Pebble I have scripts that detect problems and reboot.
* Billing system leans more to web hosting than ISP billing. It has a bunch of bugs also, but I have to pay Modernbill to fix them. Not going to happen. Bug fixes should be free. My service contract ran out before they fixed the bugs.
* Customers don't like to pay for service, so you have to cut them off if late. This should be setup in the billing system to turn off their access.
* People like to steal internet from you, so make sure your firewall is working.
* SPAM clogs up your email server, so better get a dual processor work horse just for email.
* Back up power, put UPSes on everything. I have a quad bank of 100amp/hrs deep cycle batteries hooked up to a inverter and charger to supply me with 10 hours of run time.
The above is not worth reading.
ZyXEL makes a well-regarded turnkey hotspot device (the ZyAIR B-4000). This one has integrated billing capabilities for you to run your own hotspot network. Other solutions (like the Linksys one) require a specific provider like Boingo, T-Mobile, etc, who do the billing and scrape some of the usage fees.
bp
More interestingly the about to be inaugurated new beta series, Talisman, which will offer 1-click Hotspot out of the box. Sveasoft has cut a deal with a billing service (and apparently there will be alternatives possible) so with almost no effort one turn on a hotspot and start recouping some expenses (TOS permitting.)
Yes, I said beta. So it won't be an appropraite solution unless you've got some folks willing to become reasonably knowledgable on your staff and the business is open to being 'cutting edge'. On the other hand if this project is like many the firmware may well be out of beta well before the project is ever ready to be widely deployed.
Fair warning: There is a noisy bunch of folks who don't like Sveasoft's beta distribution & support policies. Me, I've no problem with 'em, and apparently the FSF doesn't either, but I figured I'd say it before the barracks-lawyers and tinfoil-hat crowd starts in.
Anyway, that noise aside their firmwares are excellent and do offer fantastic functionality for a US$40-70 series of boxes. I also find it heartening they offer a bounty system for folks developing with their firmware: If there's a feature you specially want put up some cash and see if any of them take the bait & deliver your dream-code Indeed my only complaint is their lack of a wiki for support (also 'due any day now'.)
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Linspot was featured on slashdot. It does more or less what you want. It only runs on Mac OS X, but they are Beta-testing a Linux version.
You can try FirstSpot ( http://patronsoft.com/firstspot ). It runs on Windows and support credit card payment gateway like PayPal and WorldPay.
D-Link DSA-3100 Hotspot Gateway plus their ticket printer. Sell someone a configurable block of time, they pay you at the register, you press one button on the ticket printer to generate a printed UID/PW for the desired time frame. The gateway device manages the transient logins and expirations automatically.