How Do I Set Up A Wifi Hotspot For My Business?
Posted on August 8, 2009 by admin
Ok, My boss wants to set up a free WIFI hotspot for his business. I want bandwidth allocation for it and a way of making sure no one goes onto any dodgy sites. Plus, if some idiot downloads something illegal, will we get into trouble?
Anything under 100 quid preferabal. Could we just use a normal wireless router and PC software?
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August 8, 2009
There are several “hot spot” controller / routers that have user management and authorization some even with bandwidth control basically configure, plug and run.
If you can find them the older Ornico/Proxim AP 2500’s have all this builtin. They are often found on Ebay these days. They are great controllers for what you want. The user opens his browser, sees a login screen, you can have guest accounts, or give them usernames and passwords. You can set the up and down bandwidth per user. Even though it is now discontinued I have several we use for just this purpose and they just work. All wireless clients are isolated from each other and from the wired side of the network.. so you don’t have to be concerned too much about your network security.
Another option is like AirEpochs HotSpot unit.http://www.echotechwireless.com/Airepoch…
It has user management all built in which makes it easy to keep control etc. Just not as many features as the AP2500 but easier to setup.
You can even use the newer linksys with the Boingo system if you want paid service or use some of the older units with Chili Soft controller software which will work with DD-WRT modified units.
Visit http://dd-wrt.com for details.
August 8, 2009
Normal router?…I doubt it.
Probably one (or more) access points routed back to a dedicated server (could just be a spare computer) which would be the DHCP server and Internet Gateway – to issue IPs and monitor traffic (firewall, site blocking, logging to proove who went where).
There’s probably something you can do with this to also require a login or passkey so you could have users accept a licence agreement before use or make them ask an employee for an “access card” with unique login numbers like many hotels do.
I’m afraid I can’t give much more detail (as I’ve never done it myself) as to what your computer would be running but that’s the basic idea of it.
I know I work for my college helpdesk and the networking office has at least 2 Terabytes of logs – who was doing what on free wireless, etc. going back at least 6 months, maybe more. They use Cisco equipment on their whole network if that helps…