What You Should Know About Wi-Fi Hotspots

If you are serious about going into the Wi-Fi hotspot business then you are going to need a firm understanding of the pros and cons of operating one. This will include understanding exactly how Wi-Fi hotspots work, and any potential problems with them. Below you will find a short summary of some of the key issues that you will need to know about Wi-Fi hotspots before you decide to try running a hotspot business.

Wi-Fi hotspots are not always 100% secure
A common misconception that Wi-Fi hotspot users is that they believe the local Wi-Fi network to be entirely secure. This is an entirely wrong assumption. Due to the technology used, the Wi-Fi hotspot user may be leaving their local machine open to attack from the local subnet (the internal part of the Wi-Fi network that all the hotspot users are connected too). If you do operate a Wi-Fi hotspot business then you will need to make it clear to the hotspot users that it is up to them to secure their own laptops and netbooks on the local subnet. This would entail running a firewall program, which has been properly configured.

Wi-Fi hotspots are not always 100% reliable
A Wi-Fi hotspot allows multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices to connect to a single shared internet connection. Because the internet connection has been shared, it will mean that any user who is currently taking up excessive amounts of bandwidth, will in effect, be slowing down other hotspot users. Every business which runs a Wi-Fi hotspot needs to take measures to stop this happening. The most common way to solve this problem involves limiting the amount of bandwidth each user can use, this is known as throttling. Another option is to use a good firewall solution to block access to web applications such as peer to peer file sharing, VOIP and FTP.

Wi-Fi hotspots need to be constantly monitored
Every Wi-Fi hotspot, not just open access free Wi-Fi hotspots will need to be monitored for signs of unauthorised use. In the past, many free Wi-Fi hotspots have found that the service they offer has degraded slowly over time. This was primarily due to the fact that local residents and businesses were taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi network and using it as if it was their own. Additionally, every single current Wi-Fi security protocol can be breached by a hacker with enough time on their hands, so not even a paid hotspot with a strong password policy is 100% safe all of the time. For this reason usage logs should be examined closely at regular intervals, if unauthorised use of the network is detected then steps must be taken to eradicate it.

We can clearly see that running a Wi-Fi hotspot as a business is far from a simple plug and play affair. There is an amount of administration that will have to be done once the original setup and configuration of the Wi-Fi hotspot has taken place.

Fortunately, some of the hotspot software which is becoming available can help greatly in these typically difficult areas -- it is becoming viable for a non-technical person to set up, run an maintain a hotpsot themselves.