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Need Good Wireless Access Point For Hot Spot

I'm working on building a public hot spot for an area out here in Sunriver, and need some advice and see if anybody has recommendations. I need a good access point with the following:

Functionality that will allow us to set a starter page a "Sponsored By" page that will say who's providing the access and general rules and policies on it.
I need to be able to limit bandwidth usage so that people aren't able to saturate the providing pipe.
If it can survive outdoors, that'd be ideal, but regardless, it needs to be able to have an external antenna hooked up to it as I can run the antenna outside.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to have filtering that will filter folks based on time online, so they can't be online for the entire day.
802.11b coverage is all I'm really concerned width -- I don't really want folks to have 802.11a/g.
It needs to provide IP addresses and do DHCP, as I'm going to be hooking this thing directly into a pipe that's not going to be doing any of that.
Content filtering would be nice, but not required. Some sort of local cache would be nice (obviously we're talking about hooking the thing up to a cache at this point, and that might be total overkill), but not required.

If anybody has input on parts they've used, that would be wonderful. Or if anybody knows of an alternative firmware for the Linksys WRT54G/L router that will do this, that will certainly save me some money.

Comment here or e-mail me if you have any ideas.

Posted by Jake on 05/02/06 @ 04:03 PM
Posted in Geekdom, Jake | 6 Comments | Permalink
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6 Comments

John said on 05/02/06 @ 07:45 PM:
I use DD-WRT on my WRT54G i think it has everything you are looking for you can find it here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php and you can read about other firmware at http://www.linksysinfo.org/

Cheers!!!!

Dave Goodman said on 05/02/06 @ 07:51 PM:
Check out http://www.publicip.net/

Where in Sunriver? ;)

Jake said on 05/02/06 @ 08:28 PM:
John: I've seen DD-WRT before, and am considering installing it on my WRT54GL here at home (just got it a few days ago). I wasn't aware it had this type of capability -- thanks!

Dave: I've considered using a Smoothwall setup (which would be similar to publicip, but publicip looks far more specialized, which might be better for this). The plan is to cover as much of the village mall area as possible, with the antenna at the peak of the Discover Sunriver/Coldwell Banker office.

Mark Turner said on 05/03/06 @ 12:09 AM:
Oooo SmoothWall, I love SmoothWall.

With a lil' hacking SmoothWall could do all that and more!

Dave Goodman said on 05/03/06 @ 12:13 AM:
You want to cover the mall from one antenna? Can that be done with wifi? I'd think it would be better to use a mesh system, or at least a more central antenna. If it works from the Subway and El Pescador, I'll be a happy man. :)

Jake said on 05/03/06 @ 09:46 AM:
The access point out at Mavericks is indoors, and I can pick up a signal for it around back by the dumpsters at the grocery store across the street. Hopefully I'll be able to do the same with this.

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