Free Wifi on beach in Tramore

neon_glows

Hiya,

We have a small shop on the beach in tramore, we have recently got broadband in from eircom and are considering leaving our wifi open to any one who wants to access the internet for free.

Our broadband package we are in is http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/store/productDetails.jsp?store=Res&shopCategory=retrieveBBHomeStarter&Title=eircom%20broadband%20home%20starter&storeChanId=536896472&site=Res&chanId=536896472&ProductID=12492&BV_SessionID=@@@@1174958624.1169398327@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccciaddjmghmeekcefeceiedffndffj.0

We were wondering is it possible to limit the speed of each person connecting to our wifi? So that our cap wont be broken and we wont get disconnected and also are we legally allowed do this with our broadband?

Another concern is are you liable for what people view on our internet connection and how do we stop people using bittorrent/limewire etc so our internet is degraded to a point where we cant check our own emails and stuff and is it also possible to set it up in such a way that if someone connects to our internet that they would first be brought to a terms/conditions page before continuing to browse.

Hope you can advise, i strongly believe in free/open wifi for all.

Nicky

Ludo

Not 100% sure of the legal situation but I would imagine if anyone used your connection for something highly illegal (not torrents) then you would be the first port of call for the authorities. No way would I risk this.

DemonOfTheFall

You might want to use an old PC with some router software like pfSense or m0n0wall to be able to put restrictions on what can be done with the connection? It will probably take a little effort whatever you do though.

neon_glows

thats a shame, but it could defo be risky, maybe ill try ring eircom and ask there advice? Would it be possible if we allowed a telco onto our premises that they would consider setting this up for us/community if we were to allow people use the internet and if we paid for the connection (like the normal 24.99 or 39.99 packages)

Cabaal

If you want to share out wifi (best to check can you with a eircom connection) your best bet would be the likes of fon.com

Ok its not free but you'll have much more control over things

neon_glows

im just about to check out fon.com, i suppose i may throw some money into doing it, would be great for something like this on the beach for the summer.

neon_glows

im just about to check out fon.com, i suppose i may throw some money into doing it, would be great for something like this on the beach for the summer.

i71jskz5xu42pb

I have a fon router here. Good router with good range. If you want to spend ~€30 extra you can get an antenna that will boost the signal.

The router allows you to limit the amount of bandwidth you share with other users but does not allow you to set a download cap. Do you can say "Share X mbps" but not "share until you hit 3gb downloaded". But it will at least prevent your own usage from being degraded.

Anyway people at the beach should be building sandcastles....

thebman

Might want to consider some software to block porn sites and P2P ports and the like.

I'm pretty sure XP has a quota system for content but I don't know how well it works. You can do it for drives in XP anyway.

You might be best to get people to register details before allowing them on the network

JNive

if all else fails you would just need to set up the modem and connect that to a PC and install a Web Proxy server liek Squid or something. Then connect a wireless access point to a second NIC on the machine, and have clients connect to that perhaps, downside to this is that clients may need to manually enter the proxy address into their browser. The upside is you can restrict usage primarily to browser/port 80 services.

bushy...

You could get a good outdoor antenna and a router that would put up a splash page , stop bittorrent etc, limit the rate per person , limit the times it would be available and so on for a bit less than e200 , it will output whats going on for colection by a pc .

adrian.s

In terms of controlling access to the Internet, I'd suggest buying a wireless router that supports dd-wrt ( an open source solution which you flash onto your router) and you can do the following with it:

* Full control over what users can do, particularly peer - to peer, and you can block any sites
* timed availability of Internet access ( e.g. you might just want it to be available during business hours)
* You can boost the power your router uses so increase range.
* Lots more features...

Check out:

Flashing dd-wrt onto your router

&

dd-wrt

I bought a linksys wrt54GL, popped dd-wrt onto it and haven't looked back since! My requirements were more for home networking though, particularly that ability to have a customized dhcp server running.

HTH,
A.