WiFi Hotspot

[Morrison5891]

I had one of my business clients ask me today about setting up a wifi hotspot in the coffee shop that he owns. Any one here every setup one of these? what type of hardware is needed?

[NickCat11]

It's fairly easy, depending on the size, you may be able to get away with a basic router like the Linksys WRT54GL. How big is the area he is looking to cover? Is he looking to charge for access? What type of internet does he have (DSL, Cable, FIOS)?

[Morrison5891]

Originally Posted by NickCat11

It's fairly easy, depending on the size, you may be able to get away with a basic router like the Linksys WRT54GL. How big is the area he is looking to cover? Is he looking to charge for access? What type of internet does he have (DSL, Cable, FIOS)?

The sitting are isnt very big at all... Maybe the saize of a small starbucks. It will be free for all customers and he's got a Cable connection. I guess my question is that if you setup just a wireless network... How would the security work? Just give the wep key to anyone that wants to get online? If thats the case... anyone with the access key could just drive by anytime at night and use his internet access...

[NickCat11]

I'd say that Linksys router would probably do the trick. For the campgrounds I set up wifi access for I used the paid version of Sputnik software. Basically you flash the router with their software and go from there. They have a free version that may work for what you need. Take a look here http://www.sputnik.com/products/snet...t_express.html

[NickCat11]

I forgot to mention, the paid version which is $200/year will allow you to do things like offer access tickets for a specified time. This page shows the features of both....http://www.sputnik.com/products/sputniknet.html

[Tweak]

You should be able to setup times when the router allows access or denies it, and you could always periodically change the pass code used.

[ProTech Support]

Morrison5891, do yourself a favor and do a site search on this topic. I remember seeing 3-4 different threads that mentioned some neat software for running a setup like this. A couple of them were even free.

[Morrison5891]

Great, thanks for the information!!