My uncle ownes a caravan site with 80 ish caravans on it and would llike to offer internet wireless.
i've arranged a BT cable in the office for a a router but whats the best way of selliing the connection, eg.

do i set up a wep key and change it every month and charge for the password, but then i run the risk of them telling others on the site, can you limit the about of people that an connect to a wep kep ?

can someone help before i have to spend my time reserching info for a feebie job ?

anyone a good recomendation ?

edit:- there will be no computer connected to this router or line.

[Edited on 10/8/07 by graememk]

Im sure there is some software which works with routers (poss open source) wich will auto direct anyone who connects to your network to a webpage and wont let them go any further without entering a password. this then links into a backend database where everything about the account can be controled i.e. time the account can be active (e.g. 24 hours) this way you could sell the service or incude it with the site fees and tie the password to expire when the site let expires?

sorry its a bit vague but could look into it

Cheers

Paul

what you want to look for is a wifi 'portal'

I've stayed in plenty of places which have pay to use wireless internet, plus GNER do it on most of their trains. I suggest you try google were you will maybe get the info or maybe GNER, Travelodge, Holiday Inns etc to try and get in touch with their IT poeple.

http://nocat.net/

[Edited on 10/8/07 by dan__wright]

802.1X

Or a bit messy but you could just use MAC Address filtering.

Easiest way of selling is adding 50p to everyone's bill and having 'free' internet!

At least mac address filtering should stop people NSTX ing...

quote:

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Originally posted by bartonp
Easiest way of selling is adding 50p to everyone's bill and having 'free' internet!

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Sure as little green apples someone will hack thier way into the router from the lan side and screw up the settings just for the hell it.
As a minium I would have a IPCop or Devil Linux running on an old box between the public Wifi access point and the BT router.
Me thinks some ready made will solutions exist similar to Internet Cafe in a box".



Look at this http://www.publicip.net/

You might have to tell BT you're subcontracting their broadband.....
People have got into trouble for that!!!

U2U sent

This all depends on whether you're trying to make money off the service, or just want to increase the draw of the site by improving the facilities.

If you want to make money then you want to charge by time/usage. You need a real hotspot for that. If you're reasonably technical then I'd suggest you do the whole thing with OpenWRT, running on a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router. You'll also need an ADSL modem with ethernet output, as that router doesn't support ADSL / ADSL2+, and depending on the size of site, you may need some repeaters (more WRT54GL's will do that "out the box" I believe). I suspect you'll also need some sort of computer to be able to authorise / terminate user accounts though.

See this page for a complete walk-through of setting OpenWRT up as a captive portal: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=52685

If you're less interested in making money and just want a "fit and forget" solution that can cover its costs then just set up a WiFi system with good encryption, make an "honesty" charge of some nominal amount for the key, and allow unlimited usage. Depending on how many users you consider you'll have, you might want to consider some sort of bandwidth management/throttling.

Cheers
Richard

Err, Graeme, is there something else your not telling us about this 'caravan park'???

CLICK ME

^^^ no they moved on the other day^^^

the caravan site is near you at low fulney.