I recently spent some time in Germany and was very impressed with the small internet cafes where one could simply walk in off the street and pay for wireless access without having an account with a wireless ISP. The staff simply allocated me an access code which allowed access to web and email servies on an unencrypted wireless lan for a timed period. Does anyone know where I can find out more information about how to configure such system? Is the management software freely available?
My suggestion is you find a way to make it free to the end-user. I'll never pay for "temporary" internet access when I'm already paying monthly at home, or monthly on my cell. Of course, I have self control, many other people can't seem to be without the net.
Patrick F> I recently spent some time in Germany and was very impressed with the
The Google keyword you are looking for is "captive portal".
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Its approached either by a hardware or software solution.
A hardware solution would be "ready-made boxes", specifically just for managment of a wireless hotspot. They can be quite expensive and are mainly just used for commercial purpose. (I.e., having users pay for wireless time.) They usually integrate with some sort of purchasing service that users use to buy time...
A software solution is just that -- a set of programs to do the same thing as a hardware box. There are a number of "ready-made software environments" for commercial use. Most of the commercial software stuff runs on Windows, is pre-config'd as much as possible and already glossed, etc. They usually tie in with some purchasing service, which the distributor hedges a fraction of each transaction from.
Free captive portals? Of course! Most free captive portals are based off GNU/Linux.. I run one called "ZoneCD" to share my internet pipe. I do it simply because I like to share. "ZoneCD" can run off an older computer, with two NIC's, without even using a HDD. It runs off the CD.
In addition to offering WiFi access, some of the shops have PCs that you can use to surf the web, handy if you aren't lugging your laptop with you on a bicycle tour of Mongolia.
Those PCs are known to be rife with viruses and keysnoopers, so that you can't even log in to your own https email account without surrendering your passwords to whoever is behind the snooper.
A friend just opened a hotspot. It's simpler than that, just turned on a WAP for customers to use for free. The only control is that it is turned off at night. I'd like to embellish the setup.
I figured I'd go with a zonecd for the WiFi access. (I want to squeeze that onto a P2 with 96MB that runs Linux just fine in normal life, but the zonecd pages say it needs 128MB.)
I'd also like to offer a simple Linux-Mozilla workstation. People could surf, and at the end of each session, caches and cookies and bookmarks would be cleared. Maybe most of this would be on a CDROM or a write protected drive, or something like that.
I suppose this might be called a kiosk, but I didn't know where to start looking without getting a zillion pages. This thread inspired me to search for kiosk on the zonecd forum. (doh.)
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looks like what I want. I don't care if it's fully featured. I only want to supply a web browser. This might even make use of an old box in the garage that has been unloved for a while.
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looks interesting, but for a larger environment with multiple thin clients.
Is there Linux that will run on a 486? If not, maybe some of the old SPARC machines that I have gathering dust?
I travelled to Germany for the World Cup where I don't have a roaming account or email enabled cell phone. I configured the versa mail application on my Palm Pilot Tungsten C to connect to my pop3 email account and enabled wireless. I bought a plug adapter with a USB socket before I left so I had no problem charging it up. The Tungsten worked flawlessly. It was the first time I used the Tungsten C wireless functionality and I was very impressed. It's great for email. Web browsing is problematic unless you stick to browsing sites providing PDA specific content.
Why does it need to be free? They are providing a service.
And what does self control have to do with it? You are on the road and out of town or on business and you need Internet access what are you supposed to do? This is like saying "I have been out of town for three days but I won't buy food because I have some at home that I previously purchased".
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