I may have asked this a while ago. If I did I don't remember and don't feel like searching for the post

I have a client that is looking to offer free wifi in some of his stores. I'm looking for a router with the following attributes:
1 - Can configure hours of the day when wireless access is available (let's say from 11AM - 8PM).
2 - Has QoS capability where I can limit bandwidth to the wireless clients. Store has DSL - 3Mbps/384K and I'd like to provide 1/3 to wireless clients
3 - Has capability to allow me to segment the network. It's possible that I'll have some store equipment connected to the same router and would like the wireless clients to have a different IP address range than the wired clients. If need be I'll install a hardware firewall between the router and wired clients (something I should do anyway).

Does anyone have any recommendations for a router with these features? Thanks.

Paging TheDiggler.... TheDiggler respond to this thread, STAT!



Sorry man, when it comes to wireless routers and advice, you are the one I think of.

Someone rang???

Alan, I believe that if you go w/ a WRT54GL and install DD-WRT firmware, you'll be able to accomplish most of the above. However, how to configure all of the above is, in some cases, beyond my current abilities.

1) With DD-WRT, you can enable Wifi Isolation so that wifi clients are isolated from the LAN traffic and are thus unable to connect to WIRED devices.

2) Configure all sorts of QoS. I'm not sure whether you'll be able to configure the wifi clients to only have 1/3 of the available bandwidth; however, you can certainly configure them to have "bulk" traffic while defaulting LAN traffic to a higher priority. This will prevent the wifi clients from monopolizing the bandwidth.

3) DD-WRT lets you setup VLANS; however, that's something I'm not too familiar with. If you know how to do that (or if you're willing to learn to do it), you can probably put the Wifi clients in their own VLAN to further separate them.

4) I'm not sure if you can configure the hours of operation for Wifi access in the web gui; however, DD-WRT runs on Linux (and the WRT54GL is the "Linux" version of the router). You should be able to write a pair of CRON JOB shell scripts to [1] disable Wifi access and [2] enable Wifi access. CRON JOBS can be configured to run at specific minute(s) of the day, hour(s) of the day, day(s) of the week, etc. I'm not sure what specific Linux commands the cron jobs will need to execute to enable/disable wifi access; however, asking @ the DD-WRT forums would likely get you a quick answer. It is possible that DD-WRT may already have such scheduling capabities built-in.

Diggler

Nice Diggler. Thank you so much!

It's always a learning process. Over the next couple of days I'll be calling the major router manufacturers and will report my findings. Hopefully Netopia will have a firmware upgrade that I can implement so I can use current equipment. I have netopia Routers in each location now, but they do not have the features I need & want.

I'm leaning towards something like this: Netopia Hot Spot. What I really like about it is that it can control access time, bring up a company webpage when logged on (like a welcome page with the store name & logo) and filter out offensive websites. I want to make sure the client is protected while providing a service to the customer.

DD-WRT also has a Wifi hotspot package built in (Chillispot). Check out the DD-WRT Wiki for more info on what that firmware comes with.

Very cool. I'll be checking it out tomorrow

Hey Diggler, are you suggesting that you can limit bandwidth on a LAN connection if your router supports QoS?

For the LAN ports on your ROUTER ITSELF, DD-WRT certainly permits that. The bottom-most section of its QoS page has permits "Ethernet Port Priority" configuration, in which you can configure each of the 4 LAN PORTS on the router as follows:

Priorty: Exempt, Premium, Express, Standard, Bulk
Max Rate: 100M, 50M, 20M, 5M, 2M, 1M, 512K, 256K, Disable

Unforutnatley the above only works on the ROUTER's 4 LAN ports, so it let you tweak individual LAN ports of a 4/8/16/32/etc. port switch connected one of the router's 4 LAN ports.

Personally I've never used physical LAN PORT QoS prioritization though (i.e. I've left all 4 router ports at their "default values of" Premium/100M)

My preference is to use Netmask QoS filtering, where specific IP Addresses and/or IP Address RANGES can be configured w/ different QoS priorities. An example of how this is useful has already been covered in this old thread.

Diggler

It's been a while since I first posted this thread. Since then, with some compromise, I have implemented a wireless hotspot solution that was cost effective, technologically feasible and provided most of the features & controls I wanted. A special thanks goes out to TheDiggler for pointing me in the right direction with DD-WRT. Although it doesn't have everything I wanted it had enough.

Without going into detail (which would take waaaaay too long) I used a combination of a router with DD-WRT along with existing DSL equipment already installed at the locations. I was able to:
1 - Configure VLAN's to segment wireless from wired (to protect the wired clients).
2 - Direct wireless clients to an agreement page that has to be accepted before accessing the Internet.
3 - Control the amount of bandwidth available to wireless clients and make sure the wired clients always have enough bandwidth available.
4 - Control the time when wireless access is available.
5 - Provide some security for the wireless clients while still maintaining an open hotspot.
6 - Sort of limit the amount of time any single wireless client can remain connected (still needs some work).
7 - Block access to certain services I didn't want abused (such as blocking port 25 for outgoing email to try and prevent the hotspot being used as a mail relay for Spam).

In my search for a solution I called all of the major router manufacturers. I also called or tried to speak with people at various hotspot solution providers. This was a real eye opener and I was left with a feeling of bewilderment at the lack of customer service across the board. These people have no idea of the opportunity they screwed up on. Oh well.