topic Re: What router for village hall ? in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

What router for village hall ?

brabb — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 14:56:45 GMT

For my sins, I help look after our local village hall. We've taken the decision to install a broadband connection + wifi so that it'll be a bit more of a village hub.

The issue I need to resolve is what router to install. We won't be charging to use the service, but do want people to register and to collect (as a minimum) names + email addresses. I believe (hope) there are routers available that will handle all this internally rather than having to pay some external organisation to provide a gateway. Does anyone have knowledge of this area and could recommend something suitable ? If I'm wrong and such beasts don't exist, what is the best alternative option ?

Thanks

Brian

Re: What router for village hall ?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 15:08:55 GMT

@brabb

Have you fully thought this through?

I can't imagine that there's a hub that will do all this without an attached proper computer based management system. I can imagine that if this is left unsupervised 24/7 there will be users with false names and untraceable email addresses using it for all sorts of purposes.

This is not the itnended use of the Plusnet budget residential service.

Re: What router for village hall ?

RichardB — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 15:16:00 GMT

The term for access controlled public WiFi appears to be a hotspot gateway.
Solwise havecsome useful ibfo:
https://www.solwise.co.uk/solution-wifi-hotspots.htm
The R4 gateway implements login web pages.
Richard

Re: What router for village hall ?

MisterW — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 15:19:27 GMT

Some ( although I'm not sure which ones ) of the Draytek routers have User Management built in https://draytek.co.uk/information/our-technology/user-management#status-quota-management

Re: What router for village hall ?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 15:34:21 GMT

@brabb

I don’t know if Brexit has cast off this judgement but it wouldn’t free the village hall committee from copyright infringement claims. Extracted from a post above. https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/15/eu_ends_anonymity_and_rules_open_wifi_hotspots_need_a_password/

Re: What router for village hall ?

bmc — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 15:54:44 GMT

Given the nature of things nowadays I suspect any device would insist on reporting back to the manufacturer so you would need to think about your Privacy Policy and any Data protections requirements.

Brian

Re: What router for village hall ?

MisterW — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 16:00:56 GMT

Seems there's a later version of the Draytek Hotspot portal https://www.draytek.co.uk/information/our-technology/hotspot-portal

Seems its available on the 2862 and 2865 series

Re: What router for village hall ?

RichardB — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 16:02:25 GMT

There are uk companies which can manage both the access contol and legal compliance issues.
https://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-guest-internet-cloud
https://www.guest-internet.co.uk

Re: What router for village hall ?

brabb — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 18:13:51 GMT

Thanks folks, some useful stuff there. 👍

I'll do some investigating. I'll put an update on re what we decide to do.