I'm looking to provide wireless hotspot service in my area.
I'm looking for the following:
I would like as turnkey, software/hardware solution as possible. I'm not looking for someone to host my service. I've done some research, but everything seems unecessary complex, insecure or just downright expensive. I'm not adverse to spending some money, but I'd like to spend as little cash as possible.
There are two businesses in close proximity, a late nite coffeeshop and and chain bagel place. I'd like to throw some brochures with information about the hotspot and leave some prepaid vouchers/time with the managers of the two shops.
I really don't want to have to get into the whole credit card/payment service thing as well. I have a business paypal acount that pretty well takes care of that.
I'd like to be able to point the people to the ssid of the hotspot, open up a browser, and sign up using paypal for either a hourly, daily or monthly account and let the browsing begin. So, some sort of account managment/authentication would be needed. Some sort of bandwith management would be nice to make sure someone doesn't start a music upload/download service.
Some of the things that I've looked at:
Firstspot:
Like the software, but just really hate the idea of having a windows machine doing the management. I've had problems in a test setup with the paypal interaction.I find having a windows machine around just begets all sorts of security issues. Plus they just raised the price while I was evaluating it.
Piaportal:
Liked the idea of wiologys dedicated hardware/software approach. unfortunately, pricing and paypal support were problematic and complex and expensive.
Linksys wrt54g and sveasoft firware with chilisoft
looked like a good solution, have the hardware, since I expected to use it anyways, bought the sveasoft firware. chilisoft is cool, but if I wanted to use it commercially, I'd have to spend 200+ dollars per year for commerical radius server, plus I'd be at the mercy of the service for prepaid vouchers. still waiting for the finaly alchemy release to see if something can work
instanthotspot:
don't like the idea of having to have the printer where the equipment is. plus seems like they are selling the service more than the hardware. have to use their credit card service (acutally not even in production yet as far as I could see).
public IP
Got all excited then found out it was geared more toward free service. No paypal integration support yet. still promising though
Dlink hardware, netopia hardware, etc.
Either had to go with their service or back to ticket printer had to be connected to hotspot hardware. plus no paypal.
Boingo, airpath, etc.
either fees or a percentage of profit.
So, before anyone says anything about me trying to get something for nothing , let me say that I'm trying this out to see if it might at least be self-supporting. I'm not looking to become a wi-fi king, but would at least like to pay for my expenses/bandwith. I have some extra cash coming from a tax refund and I can probably do a one time thing, so thats the direction I'm looking.....
Thanks for any help.
Kevin