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Internet Café Owner Reveals Secrets For Profitable Wifi Hotspots
While the telco industry is scratching the head to find a profitable model for wireless hotspots, an Internet café owner in Chicago is busy at expanding his already-profitable WiFi hotspot business across town. It can be easy if you pick the right tools to save you from traps and lies, said Nick Comppen, the café owner.
HONGKONG Feb 20, 2004 While the telco industry is scratching the head to find a profitable model for wireless hotspots, an Internet café owner in Chicago is busy at expanding his already-profitable WiFi hotspot business across town. It can be easy if you pick the right tools to save you from traps and lies, said Nick Comppen, the owner of Cyberia WiFi & Internet Cafes (located in the Wicker/ Bucktown Neighborhood).
Comppen revealed the first secret; revenue sharing models proposed by some wireless ISPs seemed a ridiculous idea since its my high speed connection, my electricity and my employees promotion effort. If we do all the work why would we want to give another company a huge part of our sales?
Determined to build his own infrastructure, Comppen spent serious time in comparing different WiFi hotspot management solutions in the market; ranging from all-in-one hardware boxes, to Unix-or-Linux-based solutions, to even Windows-based products.
Second secret be cautious to those hardware-based or all-in-one boxes, they dont let me use low-priced equipments to expand my infrastructure. For simple things like adding extra access points or signal amplifiers, I would have been tied into buying their proprietary and expensive accessories forever if I had, from day one, purchased their so-called feature-rich wireless gateways to manage my visitor network, Comppen warned.
For software-based solutions, a product providing proper access control and allowing customers to self-services like opening an account online and purchasing airtime by credit cards is Cyberias requirement.
Unix is hard to use to be honest, I understand it, our web servers run on Unix, but it seems that a product running on Windows is easy for the café staff to interface with and work with on a daily basis; without any IT person around. Also less chance of an employee accidentally messing up the system, Comppen paused. The last secret, he revealed, make sure you save both money and time before committing a buy we are talking about business at the end of the day.
I discovered a Windows-based product (called FirstSpot from Patronsoft) several months ago. It does pretty much all we need at a reasonable price. It works with any cheap WiFi gear in the market. We now make money even when our cafes are closed for the day (as we set the antenna range to cover the neighborhood). We have customers signing up online for airtime, paying through PayPal and they have never even been to our cafés.
Talking about the expansion plan, Comppen said, we plan to add another Internet café this summer across town, which will also be controlled by that software which supports accounts roaming customers buying air time from any one of our cafés can use it in other locations too
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Company: Patronsoft
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