Wireless for hotel?

newbiejim

newbiejim

newbiejim

Soldato
Joined
22 Jun 2004
Posts
2,693
Location
South Scotland
anyone advise on a wireless access solution for a small hotel?,hotel offers free Internet access but needs to control access in a managed way. I'm comfortable with networking just not au fait with this type of requirement and current solutions.
 
The biggest problem with any public provision like this is that you'll potentially be responsible for whatever your guests get up to.

There are companies that specialise in providing turnkey hotspot solutions who would handle the compliance and liability side of things for you. As a first step I’d try to get in touch with some of them and see what’s involved.
 
Thanks for the reply, it's a hotel local to myself that I frequent for a beer, owner has totally open wireless which is clearly a risk. Im considering offering him a solution if it was worthwhile and not too much of a minefield/ hassle
 
That's a relatively large initial outlay.

A very quick search turned up http://www.candengo.co.uk/. I've never dealt with them, so this isn't a recommendation.

They appear to offer a hotspot service starting at £35 upfront and then £10 a month ongoing. I would have thought that this sort of deal would suit a small hotel better.
 
Yes they seem reasonable, proprietor in question isn't short of cash btw, my install/configuration fee could be lucrative :)
 
Fair enough, just make sure you have decent professional indemnity cover. If he gets done due to an oversight of yours your life could get very expensive.
 
bt open zone is ok, there are literally loads of solutions. As said above however, I'd go for a complete solution with the OP installing the kit. Win win situation methinks...
 
Ive been in hotels that ask you to give them your mac address in order to gain access, ones with open wifi, ones needing just a password etc.

Any are fine imo, no need for expensive kit if its only a small hotel, its more in the setup and security, and blocked sites/ports/protocols etc. You could manage all of this through OpenDNS networks if you want?
 
Hotel is not tiny but not huge either, it IS an ok hotel so I think proprietor would rather have a decent-ish solution, AND I would rather have a simple low hassle solution.
 
Many ways to skin a cat. But one thing I would say is if you can get a solution that's managed it's easier on you. Also open networks with captive portals for authentication are nice, because they're easy for customers to connect to, and you can stuff advertising on them and other value added bits you might want your customers to see :)
 
Skidilliplop said:
Many ways to skin a cat. But one thing I would say is if you can get a solution that's managed it's easier on you. Also open networks with captive portals for authentication are nice, because they're easy for customers to connect to, and you can stuff advertising on them and other value added bits you might want your customers to see :)
Click to expand...

This sounds good. Can either sell the advertising space or put their own stuff on it, if you go with this, you could negotiate a deal to allow you to use it for advertising your stuff etc.
 
I'm setting that up on our Wifi Kit for public internet access. you can customise the page to do whatever. I'm not going OTT as it's all in house stuff it's pretty much just going to be a branded page with a login box to start with. But you can set the authentication page to redirect on successful auth to whatever you want. Menus, adverts, tourist info, affiliates sites. endless possibilities.
 
You need to make sure you comply with the relevent laws, notably logging and data retention.

How do you intend to log all protocol traffic , and how to you intend to store that data securely for the timescales laid down. As a guide, a 25 roomth hotel with WiFi will generate circa 1gb of log files per month, equating to around 3,000,000 records for you to deal with.

Check out the relevent laws via www.candengo.co.uk/wifi-law

You also need to be able to deal with any issues , such as a legal request for information from the police should someone download or distribute child pornography or other obscene or illegal content such as blackmail via email.

Of course, you can ignore all this and hope for the best, but , from experience, it does happen - and just when you least expect it. Lastly, as mentioned, make sure you have indemnity insurance and if you'r installing on-site, public liability insurance just to cover your back.
 
newbiejim said:
This looks like it would suffice?
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Nope. Those all in one kits don't comply with the Logging requirements laid down in the Digital Economy Bill. They are fine for when you own the network, such as providing wifi to staff in a canteen, but no longer cut it when used as a public provision service unless gateway controllers are also used with a transparrent proxy to provide the required logging levels.
 
candengo said:
Nope. Those all in one kits don't comply with the Logging requirements laid down in the Digital Economy Bill. They are fine for when you own the network, such as providing wifi to staff in a canteen, but no longer cut it when used as a public provision service unless gateway controllers are also used with a transparrent proxy to provide the required logging levels.
Click to expand...

cheers for the information, looks like I need to read some
 
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