Pre-Sales Faq
HOTSPOT is place where wireless internet is offered. The visitors can use their laptops, tablets or mobile phones to access the internet. Almost all internet capable equipment sold today support Wi-Fi. Hotspots are operated mainly in hotels, restaurants, airports, trainstations, campgrounds, cafeterias, libraries and other public places.
To operate a HotSpot with our system, a broadband internet connection and at least one compatible Wi-Fi router or device is needed (this can also be a PC) . The minute the router receives internet, the service starts to work (you need to provide the broadband internet connection).
Since there is a special software running on the router, there is no need to operate a computer. You can connect the hotspot router directly to the ADLS modem or to an existing network. Then the router communicates with our web and radius servers (to authenticate users).
If you operate your hotspot as a pay-per-use service, users can pay their access fee by a credit card, thus the operation of the system is completely automatic, there is no need of staff or computers. Since the credit card module is built-in to the system, you don’t need to have a merchant account. We charge your customers, then transfer the money to you monthly.
No, you must have an internet connection at the spot. The only requirement is to have a stable broadband connection, it can be an ADSL, satellite, 3G/UMTS or any other kind of internet connection.
It’s possible to connect the router directly to an ADSL modem or you can connect it to an existing local network.
You can install it anywhere in the world where there is broandband internet connection (mobile or landline). Our system works in every country where the Wi-Fi frequency is allowed.
After successful registration you have to install and personalize your router. You’ll receive the installation instructions just after the registration. Installation should take about 15 minutes. The moment you complete your installation your HotSpot is ready to use.
Absolutely. If you want to start a pay-per-use Hotspot then you just have to register for the Hotspot PRO service – registration is absolutely free. You can setup the hotspot and play with the Control Center, you can even do test transactions (we can issue a refund for those test transactions for you). You can also try out the Pre-Paid Voucher module, we will generate 10 pieces of vouchers automatically upon registration – each are valid for 10 minutes.
If you want to start a Hotspot service which is free for your customer, just sign up to Hotspot FREE and you can fully trial the system for 7 days – you just have to pay the monthly fee after the 7 day trial period. If you choose the Pay-As-You-Go Plan, it will include some test credits so you can try out our system without paying.
Also, if the 7 trial days are not enough, you can ask for an extension through the Help Desk.
Please check out our Pricing page.
We’re offering multiple opportunities to our business partners including the White Label solution.
You can read more information on this page.
You can read more about our company here.
Also, you can read our Press Releases:
Starting a Wi-Fi Internet Hotspot Has Never Been Easier – June 11, 2007
HotspotSystem.com Releases New Firmware for Wi-Fi Routers – August 25, 2009
HotspotSystem.com Releases White Label Wi-Fi Hotspot Solution for ISPs and small IT companies – November 26, 2009
HotspotSystem.com Launches Free Wi-Fi Control and Management Service – April 14, 2010
HotspotSystem.com’s Social Wi-Fi Service Turns Free Wi-Fi Users to Facebook Fans – 7th, August, 2012
Control Center is a web-based hotspot management tool by HotspotSystem.com. You can manage your locations, view/edit users, view transactions, create reports, etc from the Cloud.
You can log in to the Control Center from the homepage at: http://www.hotspotsystem.com , using your Operator username and password which you have selected during the registration process.
You can learn several features of the Control Center from the Video Tutorials.
Currently we support the following languages at hotspot splash and payment pages:
English, German, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, French, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Hungarian, Estonian, Russian, Greek, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Finnish.
If your language is not on the list, don’t worry, we can supply you the language files so you can translate the words and system messages easily.
HotspotSystem splash pages are using SSL (https) security which means that all data is transferred to our servers in secure form (including the payment pages and registration information). We don’t store credit card information as we charge users through a 3rd-party billing processor.
Once the user is logged in, all data is sent as clear text between the user’s computer and the router, unless the user is connecting via a secure protocol (https (ssl), ssh, secure pop3 or imap, etc). This is how public hotspots work.
However most of the cases users shouldn’t have to worry as almost all payment and banking websites are using secure protocols (including HotspotSystem.com’s payment pages which are provided by a 3rd-party payment processor or PayPal). Splash pages are also secure.
Also, the system is using radius authentication which means that your network cannot be accesses without a valid username and password. We’re also utilizing a delayed authorization which means if someone tries to brute-force your network it won’t ‘freeze’. Unlike other WEP encypted networks which can be ‘hacked’ within minutes, a username/password combination cannot be guessed so easily.
If you would like to know about the security of the hotspot in an existing network (how you can isolate hotspot users so they cannot access your existing network), click here.
Yes. If you have multiple locations under your account, users will be able to log in at each location (you can also disable this function via the Control Center). There are no additional fees of this kind of operation.
Related article: Roaming
Some countries have antiterrorism laws which require any service providers to store and keep logs about their users who use internet services. There is also a DIRECTIVE 2006/24/EC in the European Union which “aims to harmonise Member States’ provisions concerning the obligations of the providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks with respect to the retention of certain data which are generated or processed by them, in order to ensure that the data are available for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime, as defined by each Member State in its national law.”
Our system is fully compliant with this directive. Also, our system is fully compliant with the Italian Law 155/2005 (also known as the “Pisanu Act”).
For more information please read our knowledge base article about Logging.
We operate servers in USA, Singapore, Germany and Hungary currently. We have an ultra high speed internet connection so you don’t have to worry about the speed.
Default optimal range is 50 meters, depending on the characteristics of the location, but you can easily extend this range by installing larger antennas, external antennas or repeaters.
You can order the ALL-IN-1 HOTSPOT IN A BOX, which contains the Hotspot router preinstalled with our Hotspot software. With this package you get:
HOTSPOT IN A BOX has a special price of $165 USD which includes shipping, installation and testing by our staff. Here is how you can order.
To answer to that questions, you need to understand the basics.
With a single router, you can cover an 50-500 meter radius, depending on the location’s physical characteristics (walls, objects, trees, etc). You can extend this further by more routers or repeaters.
If you would like to cover a large area, you should set up a router or repeater in every 50-500 meters (draw a map of the coverage of your access points so you can define how you should install a router/repeater).
This is because the Wi-Fi devices are short range devices. User’s Wi-Fi devices (in laptops or mobile phones) have to communicate with the router so even though you are using a very large and powerful antenna to cover more distance, the users’ devices also have to communicate with the router and those devices are not so powerful.
So maybe thy can see the signal but will not be able to communicate with the router if it’s too far, unless they are using an external antenna for their laptops, but most users won’t.
The signal can be strengthened by a larger antenna. There are internal and external antennas specially developed for this purpose. These can be connected to the routers easily. Should this be not enough (because of extra thick walls) the signal can be forwarded, by so called repeaters. If the repeater can receive the internet via a wire from a central router, then a simply “Access Point” is enough. There is wireless signal forwarding (WDS), which can be done by a router.
Our solution can work on a wireless mesh network. For example you can use Open-Mesh which has a direct support for our system, but you can also use other hardware with a hotspot gateway which supports our solution. Hotspot gateway can be any supported routers.
No, the system is working if you have a dynamic IP address, however with a fixed IP address you can access your router remotely and can change different setting in your router’s firmware easily.
It is also true that data is not ecrypted unless your users are browsing web pages via https. Our registration and payment pages are usign secure servers, so don’t worry, user’s privacy is safe.
It’s also possible to set up an additional encryption however we don’t recommend it because your users will not able to sign up for the service without knowing the security key. They won’t even able to access your HotSpot start page because they need to enter the security key when they are trying to join your Wi-Fi network. If you really want to do this you need to use WEP encryption.
We have done some tests using a server from StrongVPN.com. Different servers may work differently.
The result of the test was that L2TP protocol worked with all the firmwares and hardware we tried, PPTP protocol only worked with DD-WRT. Tests were done in 2011 so this may work differently in newer hardware / firmware.
If you’re using one of the Hotspot FREE services and want to cancel the subscription please contact us and ask us to cancel it for you.
If you have a live contract with us, and want to close your account, you need to cancel the service in writing, signed with the signature of the contraring company/person and send it to us.