Finally! Someone who understands what I am talking about. We have been treating our entire WISP network as a giant hotspot since 2005 or 2006. Doing it this way relieves us of having to bill people. They pay with their card in advance after their interval has expired. Depending on the location it could be
1 hour 1 day 3 days 1 week 1 month 3 months 1 year To try to do that manually would be a nightmare, not to mention still having to process charges, checks, beads, wampum, or whatever else. On our muni mesh networks we give the City a commission already. Same for our marinas. Someone on another list suggested hotspotsystems.com and implied that it would be a great solution. All they want is 25% of my company's GROSS income. No thank you. Wireless Orbit fits the bill pretty well. Has a few features missing that I would like. I have the opportunity to buy the thing and run it myself, and after some of the other solutions I see people trying to sell out there, it is tempting. It would be interesting to see where Billmax is with their solution as well. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Schoolfield Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 9:02 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Wireless Orbit closing. Interested in new portal provider Sorry to jump in on this thread. Someone else called it to my attention and thought we might have something to say about it. To those that have suggested that "why not roll your own"; Yes this can be done but there are lots of pieces to the puzzle to fit together and if is not your core competency or your haven't the time then a operator may be better off farming out this part of their business to someone with a canned solution. We are fairly familiar with the issues involved as we are just rolling out some sites just as you described. Ie. Using hotspots as a means to control access for subscribers as well as use for their traditional purpose. If you roll your own you will need at a minimum: routers that includes Hotspot functionality, radius, radius hooks to control timeouts, integration with a billing system and payment processor, customer portal, and support for vouchers or prepaid cards. Our solution and those of some our competitors include these components. Traditional hotspot systems don't really do long-lived subscriber management well if at all. Some one mentioned MAC auth; the Mikrotik hotspot does this. It is essential for using a hotspot as a controller for your subscribers as login is transparent and non intrusive. Regards, Bill Schoolfield BillMax Billing Solutions On 11/20/2013 6:26 PM, ralph wrote: > Scott, maybe you are talking about some of these services that charge > you per user and take a cut. > > That isn't what W.O. did or what we want, either. > > I do not mind paying someone a flat rate to handle my RADIUS requests, > bandwidth control, and payments via my authorize.net account. I also > do not mind BUYING a system to host in my data center. > > I am not a web designer or database designer though, so I won't be > writing a system. > > We acquired another company who had a crude system with one rate plan > that just used scripts to modify router ACLs. > > W.O. was way ahead of that. > > These are not just random hotspots in coffee shops, etc. It is the way > the majority of my customers are processed. The entire wireless > network, towers, mesh networks, etc. is handled like a giant hotspot. > > Are you interested in doing it? > > *From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > *On Behalf Of *Scott Carullo > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 19, 2013 6:42 PM > *To:* WISPA General List > *Subject:* Re: [WISPA] Wireless Orbit closing. Interested in new > portal provider > > You really should do this yourself, especially if you can program a > website.... Why pay someone else every day as your users sign up? > Use mikrotik hotspot, clear box radius and a sql server. Then you > write the code... its a little bit of work but then you control it > completely and can attach to any merchant account / bank you choose. > > Or you could pay someone to set up your own then you still own and > maintain it... > > Scott Carullo > Technical Operations > 855-FLSPEED x102 > > Image removed by sender. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > *From*: "ralph" <[email protected]> > *Sent*: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 12:27 PM > *To*: [email protected], "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> > *Subject*: Re: [WISPA] Wireless Orbit closing. Interested in new > portal provider > > I have the contact info for the Owner/CoFounder of Wireless Orbit. I > have been with them since they started in Palo Alto. I visited them > there. Last week he did offer to sell me the Intellectual Property as > well as to set up the system in my data center. > > There's at least one member (besides us) who is talking to them about > acquiring the business. > > We are also looking at WiFiRush (formerly WiFiCPA). We can buy the VM > version to run the system for $1000.00. > > Looks like it does a little more than Wireless Orbit. > > Ralph > > *From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > *On Behalf Of *John Scrivner > *Sent:* Sunday, November 17, 2013 2:17 AM > *To:* WISPA General List > *Subject:* Re: [WISPA] Wireless Orbit closing. Interested in new > portal provider > > Perhaps you could contact them to see about acquiring their business? > Do you have contact information for them? > > John Scrivner > > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 3:36 PM, ralph <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > We've been using Wireless Orbit for our captive portal AAA and > payments for > years. > Now they drop the bombshell that they will be closing in 2 weeks. > > Who is using something they can recommend? > > Requirements: > > Work with Mikrotik hotspot. > Handles multiple locations, all different with different rules, > settings, > login pages, etc. > Handles various payment plans and time limits. > Supports Authorize.net > Preferably has a flat cost, not a percentage like many of them do. > > Nice to haves: > Can support auto login by MAC > Allows users to associate browserless devices with their account. > Aggregates simultaneous usage against the maximum set bandwidth (ie. If > limit is 6 Mbps down and they have 4 devices running, each device > can't use > all 6 Mbps simultaneously.) > > MT User Manager is not an option- doesn't do multiple portals > Not sure if the one Butch Evans sells will do it, I think the > portals take > custom code by the author to implement/change, but I am open to looking. > > Thanks > > Ralph > > > _______________________________________________ > Wireless mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wireless mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
