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Setting up public Wi-Fi
Stig
Posts: 12,446 Forum Member
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Someone I know is setting up a café and wants to offer free Wi-Fi to customers. I'd like to know if there is an off-the-shelf solution which logs access and imposes basic filtering.
We had a thread in this a while ago, but I don't think we came up with a definitive answer. What I don't want is to advise the client to use a standard domestic wireless router. I'm sure the many pubs and cafés must buy in a solution from somewhere.
Any ideas?
We had a thread in this a while ago, but I don't think we came up with a definitive answer. What I don't want is to advise the client to use a standard domestic wireless router. I'm sure the many pubs and cafés must buy in a solution from somewhere.
Any ideas?
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http://www.thecloud.net/wifi/
Ensure that users register their email addresses and agree to join the café's emailing list.
That looks excellent, especially as you aren't tried to a particular broadband provider. Thanks.
Its Sky. Mind you I have not read the whole thing.
Good point which sounds like a deal killer, but they can't arrest the whole estate. Same risk with any restaurant, hotel or café.
Piece of cake man
All done in 5 minutes and there only £59 at apple referb store at the moment
yeap, owned by sky
i ****ing hate it when businesses do that. not only would i not join the mailing list i may well not use the cafe.
the non free lunch is that i am using the business in the first place. it's like making me sign up to a mailing list before i use the toilet.
or any other router that supports guest networks. which is most of them.
The client is totally non-technical and needs a managed solution 'out of the box'.
Well I pressume the person who's name is on the broadband contract will be first to be cautioned.
nothing happens. for a start to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever been caught for downloading child abuse images, directly anyway. it has only ever been when they are found with them in their computer or when a site has been raided and they have the credit card records.
but in the hypothetical. the police turn up. you tell them your are a café, and they can see that from the people drinking coffee. they come back with a warrant and you give them the records of the email addresses people used to sign it at the times in question.
i wasn't advocating that as a solution. i was just pointing out that it didn't need to be an apple airport express.
Depending on the area of coverage theres the possibility of it requiring multiple wifi points linked together so theres the first problem of locating them and then getting power/data to each unit and linking them back to a central point somewhere, it'll probably require a proper site survey and some more powerful kit than your average home router
that's unlikely to be the case really.
if you see the kit used in McDonalds etc then it's pretty basic and usually has very poor coverage anyway.
a simple cafe isn't going to need more than 1 router and it won't need anything special to run it. it's unlikely to have a lot of concurrent users and setting the DHCP lease to the bare minimum should suffice.
So yeah I would strongly advise using an out-of-the-box solution from one of the ISPs rather than trying to do it yourself. Its technically very easy to setup a public hotspot, but complying with all the bureaucracy is not. Last thing you want is to land the cafe owner in hot water (so to speak).
Apple airport express are great for iPads iPhones etc which is what people in cafés are more likely to use plus MacBook Airs/Pros etc
Unless it's a dirty greasy spoon then it will be Android and Windows phones
He sits down with a large Latte and a Muffin and awaits the stampede........lol
Wow, what a load of tripe. :rolleyes:
I know you're not stupid enough to believe that apple wireless access points work any better with apple devices than any other make.
so i'm left wondering what you could possibly hope to achieve by lying. i'm guessing by your dirty greasy spoon android comment you're just out for a troll.
some wi fi insists on your email address and mobe number. very annoying.
(For what it's worth, from a marketing point of view, I also know that in some places once you've logged into The Cloud, there is a "Do you want to sign up for more information about this pub/cafe/bakery/whorehouse?" landing page aswell, though I don't know if this is managed by THe Cloud or by the individual companies themselves).