Networking & wireless forum: Can you help me stop the bandwidth leeches at my pub's free Wi-Fi hot spot?

To look into buying an unlimited internet plan, so that he can get back to building his business.
IF you take away the worry that leaches cause, you can focus on making your business the best it can be.

This might cause an increase in internet cost, but I can just about assure you that many (or at least some) customers come because of the free internet. This results in INCREASED REVENUE. Increased revenue allows for the additional overhead of internet costs, and hopefully creates a profit that you'd otherwise not have.

Consider an unlimited plan and get back to work in/on marketing your pub!

Of course locking down your router at night by turning off the wifi radio and changing the login every day is also a help.

A lot of this depends on willingness to spend time and a bit of money to set up a "walled garden" and/or other "roadblocks" to leeches.

you might want to look at blocking everything, then opening up ports for services you wish to allow.

I don't believe this is an exhaustive list by any means, but it's a starting point.
To allow the following, unblock the associated port:
General Web Browsing: Ports 80, 8080 and 443
General Email Usage, Various Devices/Clients: Ports 25, 26, 110, 143, 465, 587, 993, 995
Network Time Services: Port 123
Instant Messaging: Ports 1863, 5050, 5061, 5190, 6667, 7001

See if you can find out what the regulars use, then you can find out those program requirements and add them to the white list if you approve.

Plan B is similar, but involves a proxy or Hot Spot Gateway to manage all that for you.
The computer doesn't have to that powerful, just nimble - an ITX sized computer with a Fusion APU at its core would capable and cost effective.
Set it up right, and it won't even need any moving parts.
This should ideally be sitting between the access point and your internet connection so it monitors everything from the access point, which will mean dual network ports.

Best of luck, Flirkann

Turn off (schedule) the wireless radio at night so that people cannot tap in when the place is closed.
Remind your customers, with signs and other means that the connection is NOT meant for extensive video streaming or large file downloads.
Change your pass phrase every day, (this will become a PITA most likely).
Consider charging a nominal fee OR a minimum purchase for use of the "Free" internet.

Look into the Ad-served "Free" wifi service similar to those offered at McDonalds.

Most importantly: Look into an unlimited data plan so that you can rest easy regarding anyone who abuses the service. IF you need to pay more for an unlimited plan, you can make adjustments to your prices to cover the costs.

First, take a look at what bandwidth you have natively. Are you using cable for your internet access? What bandwidth do they give you? Do you have DSL? Same question! Maybe it might be more beneficial to get more bandwidth but you'll have to ask your Iinternet Provider (ISP) about what is available for at what cost. The other suggestion is very important too. Even though you may not want to put any security on your router so it would be easy for your customers to use, there are TWO issues with this. First, as the signal for the WiFi is not contained within your pub, others may be stealing your bandwidth using it for downloads, movies, and streaming music. What I would do is apply WPA2 wireless security. You can post the "Password" (Password-of-the-Day or Password-of-the-week) somewhere in the pub where your customers can see it. Make sure that your next-door neighbors are not also your customers or you may need to change the password more often. You may be able to control the signal strenth in the WiFi to try and keep the signal contained within the pub instead of leaking out to the neighbors. By the way, even if the "neighbors" are businesses, it would be a LOT cheaper for them to have Internet access by using YOUR wifi then paying for their own so I would definitely use WPA2 security and change the passphrase every so often. There are also firewalls and packetshapers that would let you fine-tune what you will allow and what you will not allow. These could be pricey but maybe not. You can always do some research and see what the costs would be and what features you really need.

I'm assuming you use an industrial-strength router in your pub. If you don't, then get one. Don't be shy of the cost, as it will last much, much longer, and give you many more features -- like a good firewall, targeted bandwidth control and operational stability. You should be paying Aus$500-1000 for this equipment.

I'm also assuming your customers supply their own computers. If you supply the machines, then have all USB ports, CD/DVD drives and floppy drives removed. Then remove all software you don't want used, and make sure user accounts do not permit installing software.

One of the nice bits on decent routers is targeted bandwidth control. You can set limits here, for example give all users individual quotas, say 1 or 2 MB. OK, that sounds restrictive, but in practice it's plenty for quick browsing and casual email checks. If necessary, you can reduce that to, say, 500KB, but that's starting to get ugly. Once the quota is used, block that IP for 10 or 15 minutes.

Hforman has suggested signal strength control -- if your router does not permit that (some don't, it's "automatic") then a cheap solution is to cover the interior walls and ceiling of your WiFi room with chicken wire under a fresh wall-paper. This will greate a "Faraday cage", which will effectively stop external leeches.

I wouldn't bother with other security issues. WiFi "hotspots" are public access by definition, so WPA etc will only hinder and annoy your customers. People understand they use hotspots at their own risk. However, don't use this router for your personal and business machines -- get a separate account from your ISP, as the WiFi account will be comromised as soon as you set it up.

Gordon.

No.. you *DON'T* need to spend lots of money on a router.
Just grab an old computer...and I do mean old...I am using an old repurposed Pentium Pro...
Pop in a WiFi card (you can get these for like $15 online). Download Monowall (free) and burn it to a CD.
Pop the CD into your ancient computer and boot off of the CD. Configure Monowall, set up Captive Portal, redirect all WiFi traffic to a login webpage where you control the password. Hand out the password to anyone who asks...change the password every week...leaches gone!!!

If you really want to stop MOST of the leeches, you will need to create a secured AP that only trusted customers can access with a password. Most routers are capable of multiple connections, so you can isolate your own network from the publicly accessed one with little problems.
The real task will be in managing who you give the password to, and watching your usage to see if you get an out of proportion increase, indicating someone you gave the password to is one of the culprits.
If that happens, change the password. Your trusted users will understand. You could keep a list of users if you care to.

THE easiest way to allow customer access, and dissuade leeches in the neighborhood is a PotD! (Password of the Day!)

It can be posted in a place that is not visible from the outside (through a window for example) but easy to see for customers. Or it can be a card attached to the menu, the say as the "Special of the Day" {SotD} there are apps (like MsDonalds and other places, that do not allow access to their free WiFi until you agree to play by the rules. and I suspect those should be easy to find if your router cannot be setup to ask for a password.

This will not stop leeches within the restaurant, but if Bandwidth IS the issue, Many routers can be set with a bandwidth limit per connection. Email and the like will usually be quite fine at 50 to 100K bandwidth (although some emails can get stuffed with lotsa of graphics) but to keep VIDEO feeds to a minimum, 100k bandwidth limits will make most video (especially MOVIES) quite unwatchable, but even graphics happy webpages load relatively quickly.

Did you read the entire message? The opening and the 2 paragraphs. I covered both situations.

I think the problem Andrew has is with genuine customers (who would know the password of the day) using his wi-fi for bandwidth intensive things like downloading and streaming rather than just surfing/emailing as was intended.

Just discovered the Peerblock firewall and it's free! Very useful and flexible. I agree with the several ideas of doing a cost analysis for the pub in terms of return on the investment in an "open broadband" plan. It may still not be enough.

This is where this firewall comes in. You have control over both ports and sites to be blocked out, no rocket science included. All you need do is get the browsing histories for the unwanted sites and block them. This may still be stick figure control, but it may help to get the wildest cards off the table.

dd-wrt also has QoS throttling capability

Hi!

I have noticed all the hardwares comments, and many are good ideas (but more expensive). What about using software readily available from others to accomplish much the same thing?

A daily new password, generated by that system, can be very effective. Then you can provide a "templated" access to the net, making it difficult for one to just leech from afar. Such software does not totally eliminate net access, but makes it more unlikely to be usable by non-customers. Customers with proper daily passwords would be able to by-pass the templated screen to surf anywhere (or not), and that would cut down access time. Also could provide timed sessions, tailored to their expected time online (for example, a password change after 45 minutes, etc).

Sure, softwares can eventually be "hacked," but NOT if a daily password is used. I used to use software like this to remotely control a pub's wifi system, and it worked very well with a minimum of new expenses.

Good luck with your decision!

As your running an open wi-fi hotspot with a business you might be better to call in a separate company to set up a wi-fi hotspot for your customers, this can be run in conjunction with your existing connection and can be set up to allow you all the internet you require and access to all the things you want, whilst allowing your customers a free basic internet service and stop them from over doing your existing broadband.

In the UK we have numerous companies all offering this service, BT offer BT OpenZone and the wi-fi hotspot is set up by them for the company that has the hotspot. It is in the ISP's interest to offer these, rather then yours as like with BT they can advertise to their customers their is x number of hotspots available throughout the UK to our customers so increasing the chance of someone subscribing to their ISP service rather than a rival who doesn't have as many.

There is also Fonera which is another company that supplies routers that can create proper Wi-Fi hotspots, and The Cloud all to name a few.

All these companies have a system that allows them to give free internet away to their customers, and also charge non subscribers based on usage. They also have servers that are set up a lot better to monitor each individuals usage and restrict them from using specific channels, or charge them more for the privilege.

This would be a much better route to follow rather than trying to do it yourself, these major business have all the structure set up to keep customers secure, and offer them a certain amount of wi-fi whilst blocking out over-usage. In addition to this many of these will also pay you for having a hotspot.

Now think of this one - in your pub I bet you have some kind of fruit machine don't you? Now do you own that fruit machine or did you hire it from a third party. Chances are I know your going to say you hired it from a third party - and why? Because it would cost you more to buy that fruit machine, and to have that fruit machine maintained, and replaced every time a newer model comes out than what it does to let the lease company keep a percentage of the profits from the fruit machine, and you to be paid by them for having the fruit machine in your premises. Wi-Fi is exactly the same, don't do it on your own, call a professional company in to supply your wi-fi hotspot to your pub rather than creating your own.

Boingo seems to be one of the main wi-fi hotspot suppliers in the US so maybe you might want to take a look at their website here http://www.boingo.com/partnerships/