Providing free wifi to customers

[Clippy]

I am looking at providing free wifi for visitors to the business. Currently I just give them the wifi password but I would like to give individual access and be able to restrict downloads and session time.

Is there a simple way to do this without having to subscribe to a service etc?

Any help/advise appreciated!

Blimey, only took you two and a half years to ask this.

[candengo]

Thanks for the link.

Having a separate SSID is one thing - if its staff, and you have a good internet access policy in your staff handbook then the above advise is sound.

If however, your opening your network up to visitors and the public, you need to know who is in your network, and you need to log all the IP addresses and traffic protocols they use which is where a 3rd party hotspot provider comes in - up to date content filtering, legally compliant logging and data retention is not cheap if you try to implement in house, and the admin overhead is something most companies can do without.

[davetza]

This will be down to capabilities the device you are using to provide wifi. A lot of business grade access points will allow you have separate SSID's (wifi networks) and you may or may not be able to restrict bandwidth depending on the device.

As an example my Draytek Vigor 2820 allows you to have separate SSID's (wifi networks) and restrict the bandwidth on an SSID basis. You can also do stuff like not allow certain network to connect to each other etc etc.

[TheFaQQer]

Any help/advise appreciated!

advice

Read the DEA and check that you aren't opening yourself up to any claims if they look at / download any illegal material.

Check your T&Cs with your ISP to ensure you aren't breaching the terms.

[DimPrawn]

Open-WiFi

[tvr450]

I am looking at providing free wifi for visitors to the business. Currently I just give them the wifi password but I would like to give individual access and be able to restrict downloads and session time.

Is there a simple way to do this without having to subscribe to a service etc?

Any help/advise appreciated!