Being A Wireless Hotspot Provider

Hi,

I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
live.

I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working to
provide good bandwidth.

My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.

Any help or pointers to some information on the net would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

Rob

rob <aqwh54-NOSPAMPLEASE-@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
> allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
> you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.

That might depend on what country you are in, and maybe what area you are
in.

In the San Francisco, CA, USA area, one might want to be a subscriber to
Sonic.net, and let other subscribers of Sonic.net access your access point,
with a small revenue from sonic.net.

http://www.sonic.net/hotspots/hosting/

Or, a canned commercial solution
http://hotspotzz.com/corporate/beahotspot.asp
http://boingo.com/hso/owners.html

Or
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/003253.html
http://www.free-hotspot.com/become_home.htm
http://www.publicip.net

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

I'm in the UK,

I'll look at the site you mention to get an idea of what needs to be done.

Thanks for the pointer :o)

Rob


<dold@64.usenet.us.com> wrote in message news:ekqe2p$hea$1@blue.rahul.net...
> rob <aqwh54-NOSPAMPLEASE-@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>> My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
>> allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do
>> when
>> you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.
>
> That might depend on what country you are in, and maybe what area you are
> in.
>
> In the San Francisco, CA, USA area, one might want to be a subscriber to
> Sonic.net, and let other subscribers of Sonic.net access your access
> point,
> with a small revenue from sonic.net.
>
> http://www.sonic.net/hotspots/hosting/
>
> Or, a canned commercial solution
> http://hotspotzz.com/corporate/beahotspot.asp
> http://boingo.com/hso/owners.html
>
> Or
> http://wifinetnews.com/archives/003253.html
> http://www.free-hotspot.com/become_home.htm
> http://www.publicip.net
>
> --
> ---
> Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

rob wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
> live.
>
> I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working to
> provide good bandwidth.

Are you sure you meant bonded DSL? That requires associated facilities
at your local telco. Or do you mean dual DSL lines with a load sharing
modem interface?

rob wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
> live.
>
> I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working to
> provide good bandwidth.
>
> My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
> allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
> you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.
>
> Any help or pointers to some information on the net would be greatly
> appreciated.

Take a look at:
http://www.btopenzone.com/partners/btoziab.jsp

--
WH

What I looked at was a bonded adsl solution
Though a load sharing modem interface sounds like a cheaper option! :o)
Where do I find out about that?

Rob

"decaturtxcowboy" <nope_none_@nowayspam.com> wrote in message
news:Dv5ch.8592$yf7.4669@newssvr21.news.prodigy.ne t...
> rob wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where
>> they live.
>>
>> I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working
>> to provide good bandwidth.
>
> Are you sure you meant bonded DSL? That requires associated facilities
> at your local telco. Or do you mean dual DSL lines with a load sharing
> modem interface?

Hi rob,

If you want to build your own hotspot and start selling Internet
service, you can use ZyXEL G-4100 HotSpot, it's all in one, solution
which includes the following:

1. 802.11g wireless Access Point.
2. ADSL Router.
3. 4 port Ethernet switch.
4. Small Thermal printer.
5. Zero Configuration System ( Amazing, It can allow any kind of
guestes IP addresses to get into the Internet without the need to
modify any thing at the guest's NB or PC)
6. Internal Billing System ( AAA service ) which can be programed to
accepts credit cards as well as selling pre-paid internet time.

list price is less than $1000..

For more details about G-4100 hotspot please do visit :
www.networkingland.com/dsl_vendors.htm then check ZyXEL wireless
products.


Good Luck!
www.networkingland.com

Panda


rob wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
> live.
>
> I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working to
> provide good bandwidth.
>
> My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
> allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
> you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.
>
> Any help or pointers to some information on the net would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks in Advance
>
> Rob

rob wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
> live.
>
> I've had a look into bonded ADSL and can have that side of things working to
> provide good bandwidth.
>
> My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
> allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
> you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.
>
> Any help or pointers to some information on the net would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks in Advance
>
> Rob
>
>

Have you thought about http://fon.com

"rob" <aqwh54-NOSPAMPLEASE-@dsl.pipex.com> hath wroth:

>I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
>live.
>My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
>allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
>you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.

Never mind the technical aspects of becoming a WISP. There are
numerous products that will make it happen. You should think about
the political and social aspects instead. What you're doing is
setting up everything required of a wire line ISP, with the added
enjoyment of an unreliable method of delivery. When you say "where
they live" I'm assuming that this will be a replacement for a DSL or
cable modem for home use, as in a neighborhood WLAN, not a coffee shop
hot spot.

So, who is going to monitor the system for abuse?

What do you do when someone complains about the speed?

How do you handle interference from other systems?

Bandwidth managment and QoS to keep one user from all hogging the
bandwidth? Are you going to limit use and abuse such as Bitorrent?

Be prepared for phone calls at odd hours and inconvenient times.

Who's gonna do the bookkeeping and accounting?

Maybe it's best that you let your friends cry and have them get their
own broadband connection? Unless you have answers to the previous
rhetorical questions, you might be jumping into a potential social
problem. I run a neighborhood WLAN/LAN and have a good idea of how
such things work. Methinks you should discuss the implications with
someone that already operates something similar to what you're
planning, and verify that you actually want to do it.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff,

I'm hoping to provide 2x Load Balanced 8 Mbps adsl lines with a router that
can carry out the load balancing. This would give a user more bandwidth than
they would get on thier own ADSL line (providing that not many users are
online at any one time)

They would also get the benifit that they would no longer have to purchase
broadband and could in theory get rid of thier phone lines. This would make
this alternative an attractive one. My target is users who live on
houseboats in a marina. There would be distinct advantages from being free
from a copper line. They would have access when they have to move thier
boats. They could save money if they don;t pay for broadband and a phone
line.

I've only looked into this because friends of mine live in the marina and
they would like wireless internet.

I would like to think that I could deliver a reliable service and that the
customers could actually save a bit of money in the process. Surely this is
not a bad thing in the long run??

Rob



"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote in message
news:fog3n2hbsinm3tek6i0q12bklrkbe4gn2r@4ax.com...
> "rob" <aqwh54-NOSPAMPLEASE-@dsl.pipex.com> hath wroth:
>
>>I've got some friends who are crying out for a wireless hotspot where they
>>live.
>>My question is, what do I need to do to provide the wireless hotspot and
>>allow access once someone has paid to use the service. Just as you do when
>>you sign up for a 24 hour pass at a wireless hotspot.
>
> Never mind the technical aspects of becoming a WISP. There are
> numerous products that will make it happen. You should think about
> the political and social aspects instead. What you're doing is
> setting up everything required of a wire line ISP, with the added
> enjoyment of an unreliable method of delivery. When you say "where
> they live" I'm assuming that this will be a replacement for a DSL or
> cable modem for home use, as in a neighborhood WLAN, not a coffee shop
> hot spot.
>
> So, who is going to monitor the system for abuse?
>
> What do you do when someone complains about the speed?
>
> How do you handle interference from other systems?
>
> Bandwidth managment and QoS to keep one user from all hogging the
> bandwidth? Are you going to limit use and abuse such as Bitorrent?
>
> Be prepared for phone calls at odd hours and inconvenient times.
>
> Who's gonna do the bookkeeping and accounting?
>
> Maybe it's best that you let your friends cry and have them get their
> own broadband connection? Unless you have answers to the previous
> rhetorical questions, you might be jumping into a potential social
> problem. I run a neighborhood WLAN/LAN and have a good idea of how
> such things work. Methinks you should discuss the implications with
> someone that already operates something similar to what you're
> planning, and verify that you actually want to do it.
>
> --
> Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
> Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

"rob" <aqwh54-NOSPAMPLEASE-@dsl.pipex.com> hath wroth:

>I'm hoping to provide 2x Load Balanced 8 Mbps adsl lines with a router that
>can carry out the load balancing. This would give a user more bandwidth than
>they would get on thier own ADSL line (providing that not many users are
>online at any one time)

That's probably overkill but will not solve the bandwidth management
and monitoring problem. My (semi-serious) rule of thumb on user
loading per T1 equivalent (about 1.5Mbits/sec) is:
100 light web and email users
10 business users doing whatever business users do.
1 file sharing user.
There's a bit more truth to the above than is obvious. Most (if not
all) peer to peer file sharing programs are designed to optimize their
use of the available bandwidth. Well, that's the official line. More
correctly, most file sharing programs are designed to dominate the
backhaul and monopolize all the available bandwidth. Note that the
typical ISP shows anywhere from 30% to 50% of their bandwidth used by
peer to peer file sharing. Your utilization will probably be similar.

One ISP didn't have any bandwidth management in place on their
internal LAN. One employee fired up some Bitorrent client and
successfully saturated a fractional OC-3 at about 50Mbits/sec. A clue
that something was wrong was a 100 times increase in the number of
support phone calls.

Incidentally, I've used several Edimax load balancing router models
with varying success:
http://www.edimax.com/html/english/p...-PRIrouter.htm

>They would also get the benifit that they would no longer have to purchase
>broadband and could in theory get rid of thier phone lines.

Yep. VoIP is cool. However, watch your pennies. If you hire a VoIP
to PSTN service, it can end up costing about the same as a single
phone line. Where it really saves money is with multiple phone lines.
As for quality, we're back to QoS and bandwidth management again.

>This would make
>this alternative an attractive one. My target is users who live on
>houseboats in a marina. There would be distinct advantages from being free
>from a copper line. They would have access when they have to move thier
>boats. They could save money if they don;t pay for broadband and a phone
>line.

Well, yeah. It makes sense and is probably sellable. However, be
advised that there are existing companies that sell similar marine
Wi-Fi services. You might wanna look at their costs and price
structure before jumping in with both feet.

>I've only looked into this because friends of mine live in the marina and
>they would like wireless internet.

Ok, there is your market research. Have you asked them how much they
are willing to pay you for the exercise? I've had similar unrealistic
expectations from my neighborhood WLAN/LAN. Everyone just assumed I
would do it all for free. I'm not sure about your cost structure, but
two 6Mbit/sec ADSL lines will cost about $130/month (after the first
years intro pricing). You didn't mention how many users, but I'll
guess you need about 10 to make this work. That's $13/month minimum
which is about half a residential phone line (after taxes). That's
assuming everything else is free including VoIP service and your
support services. Do you have 10 users that will pay even $13/month
for the backhaul on a regular basis? If your marina is infested with
the same breed of tighwads as found in the local harbor, methinks
you'll be lucky to get the $13 from any of them.

>I would like to think that I could deliver a reliable service and that the
>customers could actually save a bit of money in the process. Surely this is
>not a bad thing in the long run??

That's a good goal, especially the reliability part. The problem is
that your idea of deliverable reliability may not be quite the same as
their expectations. They probably want carrier grade reliability that
they have become accustomed to getting from their telco provider. The
first time someone fires up a leaky microwave oven and takes down your
entire network, they will be sure to complain.

As I previously mentioned and you seem to be ignoring, the technical
aspects are trivial compared to the social and political aspects. Look
again down my list of rhetorical questions and see if you have any
answers. If you think you have answers, then ask the same questions
of your customers to see if they have any expectations. If they don't
match, you're going to have problems. The rest is to just buy some
decent hardware, install it in a good location, pay for the backhaul,
and spend your spare time answering support questions.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff posted some excellent points that I can only agree with.

rob wrote:
> I'm hoping to provide 2x Load Balanced 8 Mbps adsl lines with a router that
> can carry out the load balancing. This would give a user more bandwidth than
> they would get on thier own ADSL line (providing that not many users are
> online at any one time)

Bandwidth is a misused term (like when I was sitting in on a meeting and a
manager said a buy didn't have enough bandwidth to do the job, i.e. his
plate was too full)...bonding or aggregating two 4 Mbps DSL lines won't
give a single user an 8 Mbps internet backbone connection, but it will give
two users a full 4 Mbps connection.

Jeff's estimates are in line. A 1.5 Mbps (DSL or T1) will comfortably
support 100 home users in the evening(peak residential load time) assuming
there is only one computer at each residence. Since most businesses close
at five PM, your capacity opens up some. A 1.5 Mbps connection might
support as many as twenty or more businesses as their profile of usage
does not appear as intense as a home user (from what wee have observed),
but then each business has multiple computers.

Some WISPs have a monthly download data limit of like 5 Gig and others
have a daily cap at 200 Meg (and then their connection drops to dialup
speeds for 24 hours). We have both limits in place - although are
considering dropping that to only 100 Meg/24 hours, but still allow
two or three occurrences per month two of a 200 Meg download to allow for
service pack updates.

A good Acceptable Use Policy would prohibit running servers and
peer-to-peer connections...but how are you going to enforce a policy?
That's why the daily and monthly bandwidth limits are in place. Give
them enough slack as to not cripple your network and shut them down
(well, cut back their access speed) when they do.

> They would also get the benifit that they would no longer have to purchase
> broadband and could in theory get rid of thier phone lines. This would make
> this alternative an attractive one. My target is users who live on
> houseboats in a marina. There would be distinct advantages from being free
> from a copper line. They would have access when they have to move thier
> boats. They could save money if they don;t pay for broadband and a phone
> line.

Encouraging VoIP is going to really knock your connection down. I don't
recall the study off the top of my head, but with optimum encoding a T1
can support twenty VoIP calls. Some users around here have dropped their
copper dialtone and use cellphones. But the real problem is when people
start using VoIP for international calls - they tend to stay on the line
for hours on end EVERY NIGHT. They will take advantage of a free service
at YOUR expense!

> I've only looked into this because friends of mine live in the marina and
> they would like wireless internet.
>
> I would like to think that I could deliver a reliable service and that the
> customers could actually save a bit of money in the process. Surely this is
> not a bad thing in the long run??

The selling point isn't so much of saving money, its the fact that they can
even get a high speed connection.

As Jeff mentioned about after hour service calls. What happens when someone
moves their boat and their directional antenna points in the wrong
direction? How easy will it be for you to find their new slip location? Are
you going to climb up their mast in the dark? That's why an omni antenna is
better, plus the signal won't fade (as much) when the boat rocks in the
waves.