need help setting up a wireless network for guests to use in a hotel.. about 200 people..

[Chau]

Currently the hotel has just a DSL connection for employees. But they want to allow guests to use the internet for free. They also have a coffee shop, and want to let people there be able to use the internet only if they pay for it. They're planning on either getting business class DSL or a T1 connection. Also, they want the office/employees to be able to use this connection too.

I've set up home and small business networks before, but nothing this large.

I'm guessing I can't use basic/home access points for this set up. Can you guys give some suggestions and how I would set it up? I've seen lots of places that have wireless, where you open up the browser to any webpage, and it'll direct you to a login page where you have to enter a username and password. I'm guessing this is some kind of software you set up on the server? Any suggestions on what types of software there are for this? The hotel wants to be able to give a new account to each new guess, then once they leave, delete that account.

THere are 7 floors in the hotel and about 200 rooms. What type of access points would I use for this? What type of server would I need too? What kind of switch?

I'd really appreciate it if you guys could give me steps on how to set this all up.

 

[amdskip]

I stayed at an extended stay america recently with wireless internet. They had it setup so that you had to enter a password and I just had to ask the front desk what the password was. I think individual user accounts would take too much time to create and delete for the technological challenged front desk workers. I would think that a weekly password change would be sufficient enough.

I'm pretty sure that Cisco Aironet Access Points are reguarded as some of the best but I might be wrong here. Sorry I don't know how to answer your other questions.

 

[DainBrammage]

Send Me an email. You are going to need a managed vlan switch and some serious AP,s

Not to mention mail relay server, firewall, and authentication


Send me PM with your phone number and email address Ill assist you.

 

[ktwebb]

Hire someone. Bottom line. Not trying to be a jerk but you'll doing this hotel a disservice if you do not. While it's a nice gesture PM's/email/phone calls from someone that has experience enough to do this big of a job is also not enough. A 7 floor hotel will reguire many, many AP's. Just that is enough for you to hire a company that can come in and do this job properly. Hopefully the company you hire will also be equipped to handle your authentication and security concerns as well. You will, and more importantly the customer, will regret it if you do not outsource this. Bottom line is your not equipped to undertake something of this magnitude by installing a one or two AP WLAN in a home of small office, to speak nothing of the authentication and logging that will need to be done. T-1 is also likely not enough bandwidth. Might get by with it but you'll need more with that user count at various times of the day and so forth. My guess is that you'll wrongly consider this some sort of character assassination and move forward anyway. As someone who has setup up many many large wireless LAN's and WAN's I just figured I'd put my 2 cents in after reading your initial post. For what it's worth.

 

[Fardringle]

I agree with ktwebb. While posting here may get you some good suggestions and basic guidelines of what to look for and expect, this kind of project is not something you should do yourself unless you know EXACTLy what you are doing. Hiring an experienced contractor to set the network up for you may cost more at first. But it will save you an immeasurable amount of time and money later by not having to continually tweak, troubleshoot, and reconfigure the network due to the problems that wil invariably turn up if the job isn't done right the first time.

 

[Arcanedeath]

I used to work for a small Cable ISP that also did wireless service for apartment complexes, (around 11 floor highrises in some cases) I would suggest looking into smartbridge products, you can place one omni directional antena on the roof of the complex and get wireless everywhere as long as its setup correctly. you'll also need to setup a captive portal system of sometype for any non authencitated users but as I just installed and configured the wireless gear I couldn't really help you there. I just know that w/ one smartbridge wireless access point we were able to serve the whole 11 story complex of 100+ users w/ 802.11B and a T1 just fine.