CuteHotspot. Wireless Billing Software

Documentation

Software Setup

(Step-by-step simple Wi-Fi billing setup guide)

Introduction

Wireless billing allows you to charge the customers of your cafe, club, shop, hotel, etc. when they connect their laptops, PDAs or any other mobile devices to your access point (Wi-Fi hotspot) and use the Internet to surf the web, read emails or chat via an instant messenger.

When a customer opens any web site, CuteHotspot detects the connection and redirects it to the CuteHotspot Wi-Fi billing login page. The customer uses his or her login information (printed e.g. on a ticket you sell, on a receipt of your cafe, etc.) to start a session. When the balance is over, CuteHotspot blocks any further connections from the corresponding customer terminal.

In order to provide the wireless billing you have to install CuteHotspot Server on your Internet gateway computer (Windows OS is only supported). The gateway handles all network connections from your customer terminals.

We recommend using the following approach... There are 2 network cards (NICs) in your Internet gateway computer - NIC1 and NIC2. NIC1 is connected to the Internet (WAN) via xDSL/ADSL, Cable, etc. NIC2 is connected to your LAN: Wi-Fi access point, hub, switch, etc.

Use Windows Internet Connection Sharing feature in order to make a bridge between NIC1 and NIC2.

Setup

Setup Internet Connection Sharing between the network cards on your Internet gateway (server) computer. Your WAN-connected network card (NIC1) has IP address usually provided by your Internet Service Provider. Your LAN-connected network card (NIC2) obtains some internal IP address, most often 192.168.0.1.

Your Wi-Fi access point uses DHCP to assign a dynamic IP to a customer's wireless laptop when it's connected. Your access point gateway IP = your NIC2 IP address (192.168.0.1).

Please make sure that you have your wi-fi router NAT feature disabled. Otherwise all your wi-fi terminals IP addresses are translated into the single router IP address on the server side.

If you use a router in your LAN, its gateway has to be your NIC2 IP address as well (192.168.0.1).

You don't have to manually add your wireless terminals on the CuteHotspot server side. CuteHotspot automatically adds a new terminal when a customer successfully logs in.

Use CuteHotspot Wi-Fi options screen to select your NIC2 adapter and enable the Wi-Fi billing feature (main menu > Tools > Wi-Fi...):

Run!

When a customer comes to your cafe, shop, hotel, etc. and connects to your Wi-Fi access point, it assigns a new dynamic IP address to the customer's wireless laptop.

Then the customer tries to browse the web and since he or she hasn't been logged in yet, CuteHotspot Server redirects him/her to the login page.

The customer logs in using login/password printed on a purchased ticket.

On the CuteHotspot server side you see that a new Wi-Fi terminal is added.

In order to view the session info such as the balance or time left in a web browser, the customer types your gateway computer name in the browser address bar (e.g. "gate" on the screenshot below).

The customer can log off from the session info page. You can also stop his session from the server side.

When the customer balance is over, CuteHotspot automatically stops the customer session and blocks any further connection from his wireless terminal.

Customize

If you have some HTML experience, you can customize your Wi-Fi login and session info pages. Edit the login.html and info.html files which are located in the CuteHotspot\web folder.

Options

Timeout - stop a Wi-Fi session automatically when it's inactive for a few minutes or a customer leaves your shop not logging out.

Known issues. Skype

Skype installed on your server may conflict with CuteHotspot. Open Skype main menu > Tools > Options > Advanced > Connections, disable Use port 80... option, and restart your server computer: