billing at hotel

[gowif]

greetings

Can anybody help me on ways to do billings for wireless internet access to customers at hotels.how do I do it.gateways,credit card billing companies??

All the help is appreciated

[jflynn]

I'd advise you to let the hotel worry about it or just give it away. Every company since the HomeRF days in 1998 who knew how to do it and actually went out and did it went bankrupt or had to augment the failed wireless hotel model with something else that was actually profitable.

T-Mobile uses AAA connecting back to a corporate server, with Nokia routers at each site that force the new users associating with the network to first logon by forcing a splash page. An easier method woukld be to partner with a roaming company like Boingo. Alternately you could filter MACs or hand out IPs and bill manually but that's a royal pain, however when you realize how few people are using it it won't matter anyway.

A smarter choice would be to realize many copmpanies with deep resources have tried and failed what you are attempting to do. Contracting for hotels is fine, just set expectations properly and get some money up front. I think you'll quickly realize you're in way over your head if you think sustainable ongoing revenue can be had from this, sorry.

[oshea85]

OK, last guy's a little bitter it sounds like...but didn't answer the question.

A pretty-full featured solution is the Cisco Building Broadband Services Manager. It proxies, gateways, interfaces to many common property management systems (meaning users can charge their usage against their rooms), and can be configured to communicate with internet credit card servers. There's also a flavor out now tailored just to the hotspot scenario you're dealing with.

This solution is robust, and costs some $$$, but it's easy (not simple, there's a difference) to configure, and could make your life much, much easier.

[ExpertWitness]

Outsource to a company with accounts already. There are a couple out there doing a good job. You just have to dig for them.