Profit From Wifi?

[CyborgGold]

How would I go about using, say, a Fon router connected to my 16MBps Cable connection along with some sort of software to allow people in my apartment access to my network and internet for a small fee giving them a username/password so they can be billed monthly through the service or by the hour similar to how internet cafe's work. I realize of course that I would have to add a stronger antenna to the router and make it able to reach all of the units.

I have already cleared this with my complex and they gave me the go ahead, but I don't know how to go about setting it all up. I was thinking about using PayPal and Credit cards as payment options (I already have a merchant account service I can work through for the CCs).

Thanks for your help!

[Netshroud]

What about using the standard Fon firmware?

[metatron]

captive portal + RADIUS server

[H@L0_F00]

1. Restrict the router to the LAN with no encryption.

2. Captive portal sends all requests to a page explaining how to pay for an (SSH) account to get secure, fast, wireless internet and free support.

3. Host KiTTY (PuTTY fork that saves session settings to files and folders, not registry, which means you can include the settings preconfigured to connect to your SSH server, use compression, not request a shell, etc.) on the same server you are going to run the SSH daemon on, as well as anymore files you may need (WinVNC for support?).

4. ?

5. PROFIT

[operat0r_001]

or just host free wifi with popups and malware on it ...

[CyborgGold]

captive portal + RADIUS server

Thanks!

[CyborgGold]

1. Restrict the router to the LAN with no encryption.

2. Captive portal sends all requests to a page explaining how to pay for an (SSH) account to get secure, fast, wireless internet and free support.

3. Host KiTTY (PuTTY fork that saves session settings to files and folders, not registry, which means you can include the settings preconfigured to connect to your SSH server, use compression, not request a shell, etc.) on the same server you are going to run the SSH daemon on, as well as anymore files you may need (WinVNC for support?).

4. ?

5. PROFIT

Awesome, thanks for the help!

[barry99705]

Awesome, thanks for the help!

Check your isp's tos. Most don't allow sharing.

or just host free wifi with popups and malware on it ...

Wow. That's a great way to get an ass kicking out in the ally behind the apartment building.

Edited May 9, 2010 by barry99705

[eurekasky]

All things aside, i would highly suggest checking out OPEN MESH.

The hardware is cheap, its "mesh-ready" to extend range where needed. It also has a management portal for your ap's & etc. I was planning on using this in a corporate environment but the back-haul is not encrypted for the mesh. As long as you dont care about that then no worries... I will note that they claim a user cannot connect to the back-haul network (only other open-mesh nodes). I do not know how true this is because i don't have the hardware to 'play' with but i would suspect for your specific application this would be perfect.

http://www.open-mesh.com/store/

[edit]

I will also note that the OpenMesh firmware will work on the Ubiquity NANOSTATION2 which has some insane output ;)

I know several people using this for WISP businesses. Even without an external antenna i was able to locate and connect to my nanostation2 at my office from about a mile away (on my side of the site i had a 15dbi parabolic, the other was just a stock nanostation2).

This would mean a slightly higher cost but with the added benefit of not having to have many nodes.. And to have the great range the ns2 has.

[/edit]

-E

Edited May 11, 2010 by eurekasky

[Jokke]

I'd go for OpenVPN-AS, use pam to get authentication from database and make web interface to handle registeration and payment. All http-traffic outside of vpn is just routed to single webpage where is options to register/pay.

[Mr-Protocol]

This would be a good segment I think.

Not sure how others feel on it but I wouldn't mind some knowledge on setting one up and profiting :D

http://wifirush.com/store/products/WiFiRUS...y-Fee!.html

We could make a Hak5 Wifi Hotspot appliance with Mini ITX.

Router OS I guess could be a good starting point for making one.

http://www.mikrotik.com/software.html

Or using Smoothwall

This link I found has some other possible options. Router Firmware.

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7087/1/

Edited June 26, 2010 by Mr-Protocol

[IdinAK255]

I wish I thought of this earlier.

[Infiltrator]

captive portal + RADIUS server

That should do it, and don't forget to use strong encryption too.

WAP 2 Enterprise + AES

[metatron]

No real money in it. Its easy enough to do with a captive portal and RADIUS server and use paypal to run cards/payments. You would most likely breach your agreement with the ISP.

[Infiltrator]

No real money in it. Its easy enough to do with a captive portal and RADIUS server and use paypal to run cards/payments. You would most likely breach your agreement with the ISP.

How are they going to find out anyway, unless you tell them. I used to share my internet connection with my neighbors and they would pay me $50 dollars a month.

After sometime I hated the idea of sharing my internet connection, for a simple reason they used to hog all my bandwidth with downloading of porn and other crap. So I decided to cancel the agreement between us and told them that the internet was getting too slow and couldn't sustain this anymore.

Edited July 7, 2011 by Infiltrator