Make Your Internet Connection Pay for Itself
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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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20 Responses to “Make Your Internet Connection Pay for Itself”
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Nate Says:
February 8th, 2008 at 5:48 pmMake 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.
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J.Becker Says:
February 9th, 2008 at 6:10 amA 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.
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Isaac Says:
February 9th, 2008 at 10:30 amLocation, 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.
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Rhyuso Says:
February 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pmI’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.
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Jake Says:
February 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pmDon’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.
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Egonitron Says:
February 13th, 2008 at 1:26 pmI 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.
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hb Says:
February 14th, 2008 at 11:58 amIt 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.
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Robbo Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pmI 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!
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Norcross Says:
March 19th, 2008 at 9:15 pmWhile I’m all for it, keep in mind that most ISP’s probably restrict reselling their service.
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Sarah Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 3:15 amWiFi-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.
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Canadian Hacker Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pmHi 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 ?
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Simon Says:
July 6th, 2008 at 2:01 amI 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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Loren Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 amDefinatly check out the WiFi Gator project.
1) You own the server and software and keep all the $$
2) Operate as many hotspots with your server anywhere in the world, you keep all of the money you collect.
3) Print tickets or enable the payment gateway or both.
4) Make your own mesh networks, no cat5 needed to flood a hotel with wifi.
5) Create multiple pay pal accounts and assign them to hotspots.
6) 3.0 is in beta, it automatically builds your routers custom firmware on the fly, install the custom firmware, connect it to the internet and it will download its configuration from your server.
7) With your access point configured and live, flash another router and just power it up, it will see that it is not getting an IP assigned and will reboot as a repeater, mesh up with the access point and download its configuratioon from your server.
you become WorldSpot, you customize the software any way you want.
9) set your payment plans to limit the bandwidth up and down.It’s worth looking into this WiFi Captive Portal for fun and profit.
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Chuck Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 10:48 pmDon’t waste your money on wifigator! Not a professional application for a WISP. Their “mesh” solution is based on stealing wifi from ANY open SSID. They use some hacked dd-wrt firmware.
As noted above, there are better solutions out there.
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steve Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 8:21 amchuck said
my question to him is has he tried it? you don’t setup the repeaters to connect with any open network (even though you can) You set them up to connect to your network. I have used this software since it first came out and it has done a very fine job for me.
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Marshall D. Says:
November 21st, 2008 at 11:22 amWifi gator is probably the best solution I have found so far.
Wifi-CPA is mostly useless and overpriced anyway.As for wifigator jumping on any available open network .. only if you configure it that way … which most people do not ..why would you want that anyway?
Also I will say this … if you want any type of technical support I would steer way clear of wifi-cpa, terrible support there.
Wifi Gator on the other hand has excellent support .. you can get ahold of the owners direct lines any time, and they will go out of their way to help you.
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Joel Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 11:52 pmcheck out easyhotspot. it has everything but with a little tweaking it will get the job done.
http://easyhotspot.sourceforge.net/ -
Someone else Says:
January 17th, 2009 at 11:40 amWiFiGator?!?
A proper WISP Solution?!?
You must be kidding me!
First thing is:
They are breaking the GNU License.
-It is build on Paypal WiFi Prepaid that is released under GNU/GPL so basicly they MUST release the code FOR FREE(As Chuck agreed at first(This is funny crap: Chuck AKA Marshall D and Marshall D AKA Chuck - 2 kids playing a baby game)) - NOT FOR $300
(Sooner or later someone will report them to GPL-Violation.org)Second of all:
It is full of easy-to-hack codingThird of all:
Scripts are base on old software so it is easy to hackWithout talking of…
-MOST of the server’s settings are DEFAULT
-Way too much crap is running on the very same serverAnd what about WiFi-CPA?
It is stolen work too so avoid it-
(I must still admit: It is a more secure/reliable solution)You better check out other solutions and not waste your time(and money) on both.
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Aaron Says:
March 11th, 2009 at 5:30 pmSomeone else, like how you actually put your name.
Anyway, I guess your the end all know all on the GNU. You might want to read it again and the Paypal WiFi Prepaid is free on Chuck’s site as well as a complete step by step section on how to get it working.
I could care less what you think about it because I know for a fact it works and I’ve made large amounts using it. You say it’s easy-to-hack, that’s funny because I’ve stayed in hotels and guess what, the systems they have in place are not secure. Don’t fool yourself into thinking big name sellers are anymore secure then easyhotspot or any other project out there.
Most of the settings are default? Hello Mcfly, that’s why you change it with the easy to follow steps. How many people plug in a Linksys router out of the box and leave the default password and a completly open SSID, I would hope your not one of those types.
I find it strange your post on here is dated right around the same time a negative post was made in the dd-wrt forum about this software. I was doing some research in dd-wrt and came across it and I forget how the hell I came across this site. It almost seems like you might have tried it but lacked the knowledge to get it going. The same person on dd-wrt mentioned $300 also. Did you get your money back?
p.s I’ll probably never visit this site again. If anyone happens to read this post I’m not taking anyone’s side. I’m just telling the truth and know for a fact the wifi gator system works and I’m now debt free thanks to the software. Could care less if you beleive me or not, just happy I can start my business fresh.
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jmaloy5365 Says:
January 5th, 2010 at 4:16 amWiFiGator was stolen from the dd-wrt forums. I was apart of it. And as for GNU, they are in violation of it because you can’t pices pieces of GNU software together and say “it’s mine” and now you have to pay for it. I know this is old but just setting the record straight. And as for people “Buying” the software. You shouldn’t have had to, it started as FREE software until it got bigger and better then wifigator people ran off with it and shut everyone else out.
