SettingUp Your Own HotSpot (1)

There are few things quite as nice as opening your laptop at a coffee shop, connecting wirelessly to a network, such as WenXueCity, and enjoying a cup of coffee.
A publicly available wireless network is called a HOTSPOT.

Hotspots are popping up at bookstores, airplane terminals, hotels, and just about anywhere you might think to try to get some mail or do some work on your laptop.
Many hotspots are free (so called Free-Spots) by intent and anyone is welcome to use them. Many more hotspots are free because people don't turn their wireless security on. No password and no encryption equals "free," and for some it is great sport to ride around "hotspotting" or "wardriving" in their cars detecting available hot spots to list on their web sites. www.jiwire.com/warchalking-introduction.htm. ... give you the information.

Keep in mind that jumping on a wireless network uninvited is a form of hacking and an intrusion, so tread lightly.
There are many instances where it makes good business sense to set up a hot spot, and indeed for some companies setting up hotspots is a business in itself. If you own a motel and want to provide wireless networking to your guests, a hot spot is just the ticket. It can be a service that you charge for, which, if you have enough customers more than makes up for the low costs involved in setting a hotspot up. There are companies that will sell you a canned solution, a so-called "Hotspot In a Box." Other ISPs offer hotspot service as an option on your business account.
Without too much effort it's straightforward to build your own hotspot as long as you know about a few of the hidden gotchas. We'll look at how you as a small business owner can go about setting up a hot spot, making it a paying proposition (or not), and do so safely and securely for all the parties concerned. Hopefully this will answer the question "Is this a business for me?"

That's easy! A hotspot is any publicly available wireless network that is available by intent. When you go into a Starbuck's coffee shop you'll find that they use the T-Mobile wireless hotspot service as their hotspot provider. The way T-Mobile works is that a customer pays a monthly subscription fee to access T-Mobile's network, and then uses that account to connect to the service. T-Mobile is a large ISP in the hotspot market, but this is still a small market. What T-Mobile provides you is convenience. They do all the heavy lifting, you supply the cash. However, T-Mobile is a closed service meant for larger companies. They provide the hardware, the support, the billing, and the collection. You can elect to put a T-Mobile access point into your business, but you can't have your customers from other services connect via your hotspot with T-Mobile's network.

There are plenty of other providers that can offer you open solutions. From providers like these you get a conventional ISP business account relationship with pricing based on usage. Your customers get an account from any one of the services that honor each others' accounts, and that feature enables your customer to roam (which is after all what wireless is about). So setting up a hotspot can be as easy as making a phone call to a total solution provider, or as complicated as setting up any wireless network that is connected to the Internet. What you should opt for all depends on how much control over your services you want or need to have, and your intended use.

You need the following pieces to create a working hotspot connection:
• A high speed connection
• An Internet Service Provider
• A Web server (yours or your service provider's)
• An authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server
• switch, router, or access point, preferably one that is meant for a business and not a SOHO.
• Customers on a mobile device
Not all of those pieces need to be supplied by your business, of course, and a turnkey solution from a vendor like T-Mobile won't require any of them. While people who set up hotspots for a living are finding work these days, it isn't entirely clear that a business can achieve significant revenues from an active hotspot for their customers. It's probably best to think about this service as an incremental revenue source, or a part of your overall service package at the moment. That may change over time as more people may be willing to pay for hotspot connectivity when that connectivity is ubiquitous and universally available.
Essentially hotspots need to have the same kind of coverage that cell phone companies provide. Since today there is no national or international network of hotspots, and no consistent pricing scheme it's harder to attract paying customers for hotspots at the moment than it is to, say, get someone to buy a cell phone service contract. Perhaps the cell phone networks will become the wireless LAN connector of choice and this will be another part of that service.

Intel's "Wi-Fi HotSpot Deployment Guide" is a great place to start reading about creating a hotspot. It contains specific scenarios for hotspot usage. Indeed, for Intel this is a product initiative for their resellers and their guide is really a white paper aimed at technical managers considering hotspot deployment. It's written in an easily understandable form, and at a technical level similar to this book. You can download the guide from

http://www.intel.com/business/bss/infrastructure/wireless/deployment/hotspot.pdf<

If your business can be improved by providing Wi-Fi access to customers perhaps you can avoid the headache of trying to audit and bill for service by adding the cost of service to your products. Any restaurant that is busy with few empty tables and requires multiple seatings throughout the evenings for meals to turn a profit isn't going to be helped by installing a hotspot. They don't want their customers just sitting around. However, any business with lot of empty tables and chairs or where the act of being on the premises adds sale volume due to additional product purchases is a candidate. The experience of others in your particular industry and in similar locations is often the best teacher. Remember, having a hotspot can be a differentiator that helps you gain advantage over your competition. A customer might choose your hotel over someone else's if you offer wireless connections. Chances are that your experience with hotspots will be tied to the kinds of customers your business attracts, and to your particular business model.

Among the establishment types that could benefit from a hot spot are: airports, bus terminals and other public transportation; hotels and motels; Internet cafes, coffee shops, restaurants and shopping malls; self-service and business centers; conventions and conference centers; schools; apartment buildings and offices; and any company that needs to provide guest access to network services.

Hotspots needn't be a permanent feature either. If you run a trade show you could be setting up a hotspot every time you move your "tent."

A Preliminary Checklist

Setting up a hotspot is very similar to connecting a wireless access point to any DSL or cable broadband connection. The major difference is that since your customers may generate significant network traffic on aggregate, most ISPs will require that you buy a business-class connection and establish a business account.

Here are some of the steps you need to take to implement a hotspot in your business:

1. Perform a site survey. Estimate the physical size of your desired hotspot and determine if your equipment has an adequate coverage area. Most access points offer coverage of about 300 feet in all directions. Walls can lead to significant drop off, and you may require additional access points and/or repeaters. See Chapter 9 for more details about structural impediments.

2. What number of users will connect on average and at the maximum level? If you figure that each user will require a throughput minimum of 100Kbps to do e-mail as Intel suggests in their hotspot deployment guide, then more than five concurrent users requires at least a DSL line. You should also figure that each router can accommodate approximately 25 users. For more demanding throughput of larger file sizes (such as music files) you may find that your five users are using 1.0 Mbps and you will need a cable connection. In your calculation, keep in mind that not all connected users are generating traffic all the time, and make your estimates accordingly.

3. Test the equipment you are using for range, address provisioning features (such as DHCP, DNS, and gateway assignments), and for conflicts with other devices in the wireless range. To test your wireless coverage you can use a notebook computer, an RF analyzer, or an AP with a test standard feature. When you find a conflict, record the channel used, the MAC address, and the strength of their signal at several key locations.

When you purchase your access point or router, you should get a guarantee from the seller. If your device conflicts with other devices, as is often the case for 2.4GHz devices, you will need to exchange the item for a different device. You can get interference from microwave ovens, extended range cell phones, wireless video monitors, metal walls, and most frustratingly from your neighbors using your same channel. Neighbors can be a problem if your business is in a dense location, less than 300 feet from other businesses. You'll need to test for conflicts, and be aware that metal walls do not show up in a site survey using an analysis tool. Perform your tests at different times of the day so that you locate intermittent but regular interference.

4. Draw your site and map out the range your access points will have. You should have enough cell size to have good coverage, but not extend out of your desired range. If necessary, add more access points so that they overlap and lower the power of your access points to get better coverage and serve more users, as shown in Figure 22.2. Your map should also indicate how many users will be in each zone so that you can design your overlap to accommodate the required connections. (NoteAirmagnet, Airopeek, and Network Instruments Observer all offer RF Analyzers. For software that you can use consider NetStumbler (Windows), Mini-Stumbler (PDA), Airtraf (Linux), and Kismet (Linux). )5. Contact ISPs to get pricing and requirements and determine if you are going to use a consultant or management service to help you with your hotspot. A consultant can be useful in setting up complex hotspots, measuring the quality of the connection, and in particular setting up security and billing software associated with a site. In previous chapters you've been advised NOT to advertise your SSID. However, when you want the public to use your access point, it is a good idea for the network advertise itself by broadcasting its SSID. It isn't absolutely necessary for a hotspot to broadcast, but it does allow someone in wireless range to connect without having to ask your staff for the SSID. If you don't advertise, your user will need to be told your SSID, which has some value in maintaining security. It's also a good idea to carefully manage the physical extent of your hotspot's broadcast to limit access to people who are not frequenting your establishment..