Daily Cup of Tech

I would be completely lost without my Internet connection. I had my central firewall die one day and it only took a few minutes for me to go into withdrawal! But, a lot of the times it is just sitting there doing nothing. And, like the lazy house guest who takes the trash out once a week, you really wish you could get more out of it.

One of the ideas that I have been working on is setting up my Internet connection with a WiFi hotspot so that people who are in the area and want quick Internet access can pay a small fee and get what they need.

This is a project that is still in the research phase but I have already made some really interesting discoveries.

1. I am probably going to use a piece of software made by Coova called CoovaAP. It is based on OpenWrt and allows you to turn several different stand alone commercial WiFi routers/firewalls into a full blown manageable hotspot. From the website:“CoovaAP is an OpenWRT-based firmware designed especially for HotSpots. It comes with the CoovaChilli access controller built-in and makes it easily configurable. CoovaAP is perfect for just about any HotSpot application - from WPA Enterprise (with RADIUS accounting) to Free WiFi with Terms of Service acknowledgment to commercial HotSpot captive portal applications. Use the embedded captive portal for a simple self contained HotSpot or use your own captive portal and RADIUS back-end. It is all up to you!” Other options that I have been looking at include WiFi-CPA and Worldspot.net.
2. If you are planning on doing this, make sure you read your Internet provider’s terms of service. You may not be allowed to do this without putting yourself at risk of being cut off!
3. You may want to look at boosting your WiFi signal to allow for the greatest amount of coverage. There are several ways to do this.
4. Make sure that you set up traffic shaping so that you can give your own computers priority over those who are using the hotspot. After all, it is your Internet connection.
5. Split up your internal network and protect it with a separate firewall. The last thing you want is your hotspot clients getting access to your personal information.
6. I’m still trying to figure out how to allow users to pay automatically when they create an account. It looks like PayPal will be the first most logical choice.
7. If you have a number of Internet connections in several different places, you could set up a single sign-on configuration to make it really easy for your clients.
8. It will be very important to determine how lucrative this will be because it could potentially be worth getting more Internet connections specifically for this purpose.

I think there could be some real opportunity here.  What are your thoughts?

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12 Responses to “Make Your Internet Connection Pay for Itself”

1. Nate Says:
   February 8th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

   Make sure you include a robust logging system so you can prove it was a hotspot client who did x y z illegal activity and not you!

   Even with such a logging system in place, your equipment could get seized and be locked up in evidence for months before they clear you.

   My advice is, if you’re a home user, don’t bother. If you want to set up a commercial AP, get a business internet account, and do everything legit like. It just isn’t worth the risk.

   Good luck to you thought Tim. You probably know something I don’t!

   This tinfoil hat has become more comfortable over time.

2. J.Becker Says:
   February 9th, 2008 at 6:10 am

   A solution like this that considers almost all of your points in FON. They offer a small router that sets up to completely seperated Wifi networks, one open and one closed. It integrates bandwidth reservation, a login and billing website and you can also get a boosting antenna for the router.

   You can choose between 2 profiles at FON:
   1. Share your internet and use any other FONSpot for free.
   2. Share your internet and get money from (non-FON) surfers.

   At special occasions, you can even get the router and antenna for free. But even the regular price is not very high.

   See for yourself:

3. Isaac Says:
   February 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am

   Location, location, location. Sounds like a good idea, but it really depends on your location. If you are near a shopping mall or something, maybe, but out in a residential area, there might not be much demand.

4. Rhyuso Says:
   February 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

   I’d add another vote for FON - so easy (and cheap) unless you already have a spare router to put OpenWRT on FON is the way to go.

5. Jake Says:
   February 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

   Don’t know if you’ve played with ZoneCD at all, but it’ll work with any router, you just need to install this on a seperate system. I use it for a couple HotSpot installs. I put the router and a power over ethernet connector in an external (weather proof) enclosure. Put whatever firmware you want onto it. Then run a cable back to your ZoneCD box (any old box with a CD drive and a couple NICs will do), and it does DHCP, HotSpot, logins, logging, etc… .

   Just another option to throw out there (and there are commercial monitoring systems for it, too, though the free CD works just fine). I don’t know about payment gateways and such, but I’m sure that somebody on their forums has tried it.

6. Egonitron Says:
   February 13th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

   I agree with FON, I’ve used it before and made a few dollars, but I’m not in a prime location to do that so I got rid of it. Sounds like that’s exactly what you’re looking for though.

7. hb Says:
   February 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   It is not a new idea as you can see from the previous posts, but maybe more interesting will be to have a community of users that share their connections and provide better service and coverage.

   How lucrative it could be?!

   Maybe yes, maybe not.

8. Robbo Says:
   February 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

   I also will agree with FON. there aren’t enough FONEROS in the US yet…but the more people that sign up for it, the better the network will get!

9. Norcross Says:
   March 19th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

   While I’m all for it, keep in mind that most ISP’s probably restrict reselling their service.

10. Sarah Says:
    March 28th, 2008 at 3:15 am

    WiFi-CPA just released a partnership with open-mesh. Open-mesh is a original technology used by Meraki. With Mesh networks, extending the range of a WiFi network has never been easier. Pair that with WiFi-CPA, and you have a pretty cool Captive Portal - WiFi network.

11. Canadian Hacker Says:
    April 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    Hi there,

    I had an idea of building a community which are sharing their WiFi spots and using it for the IP-telephony (cause the cell phone companies are charging here an arm and a leg, especially when it comes to data plans). The members of the community will use iTouch, Nokia N800 or Skype phones and talk to land lines only for couple cents if not for free ;).
    It is supposed to work fine in the community areas, which can are already covered pretty dense by WiFi. One of the main challenges is free riding, and preventing people from abusing open WiFi networks. This can avoided in rather simple way: in order to use this network you have to open a spot. And then the only problem I see is the problem of instant and transparent authentication of new clients in the network as the members can use various routers and devices (some of them won’t have browsers). Initially I thought of using devices MAC addresses, however they can be easily stolen and substituted.

    What do you think fellas ?

12. Simon Says:
    July 6th, 2008 at 2:01 am

    I think you’re better off looking at the Whold Debian Enchilada and Wifi-Gator. Cheaper, solid and certainly much better. Theres also a good sized and very knowledgable community of users who are more than happy to help. Go take a look - I’m so happy I did.

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