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Free internet

Internet Access and Computers

Scotch Argus started this discussion 16 years 3 months ago

I've seen a number of hostels advertise free internet, I've been thinking of doing the same and I was just wondering how people manage free internet. We currently have a paid terminal (£1/30mins) and offer free wifi. As the number of people who are travelling with internet enabled devices increases the takings from the internet terminal has decreased, so I was thinking of just offering free internet - even through our terminal. I doubt I'd lose a lot of revenue, and I think it'd be a good selling point. I've never made a lot from the terminal, it's more been just to cover the cost of the PC, and hopefully pay for the DSL line.

My biggest question is how, if at all, people regulate the time people spend on it. If we only have one, or even 2 terminals, I can see a few people, especially kids, sitting on it all the time, therefore making it impossible for everyone to get a turn. Sort of defeats the goal of free access is people can't get to use it. I don't want it to become some task for reception either having to sort out disputes between people as to whose turn it is etc.

The other issue is bandwidth - we have a slow (512k) connection here and even one person using video streaming will slow it down - if you had a couple and a laptop doing it then the web would slow to a crawl. Is there any method of limiting bandwidth to individual terminals? Maybe even a wireless router that has that facility.

Also, what do people do with access to flash drives, cameras etc? Currently I have my terminal set to not allow plug in USB devices access for security reasons - all they can do is use the internet, not the file system. More and more people seem to need this facility for blogs, facebook etc.

I have number of all-in-one PCs here I was going to use - perhaps even put them in the rooms, although not certain if that's practical yet. They don't have windows licenses so I was going to install ubuntu on them - probably a better system for security anyway, and I notice there is a kiosk plugin for firefox.

Thanks for any opinions or advice from out there.

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Scotch Argus

16 years

I think users should be able to use all soft- and hardware, so kiosk-mode or browser only systems are not my choice. One will need skype, the other one wants to burn a CD, someone maybe wants to copy something on his memory stick, I think computers today are much more then just browsing machines.

I agree with this idea, but in practice if you are going to allow full usage of a PC then there are a lot of potential problems. I have my kiosk machine as locked down as I can, and people still seem to manage to mess with it. If they had access to the file system then I doubt it'd last long. It's amazing what kids will try and do. That's one of the reasons I'm moving to linux - I hope that it'll be more robust.

I'm interested in hotsplots - you say you use free tickets - does this mean you buy each ticket for 10 cents and give them away free?

I have managed to install xubuntu, and have now got opera browser going in kiosk mode - I'll give that a try before trying to install a timer system.

The software I used for a voucher based kiosk under windows was sitekiosk, it was excellent, though a bit expensive.

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Plakian

16 years

I agree with this idea, but in practice if you are going to allow full usage of a PC then there are a lot of potential problems. I have my kiosk machine as locked down as I can, and people still seem to manage to mess with it. If they had access to the file system then I doubt it'd last long. It's amazing what kids will try and do. That's one of the reasons I'm moving to linux - I hope that it'll be more robust.

As suggested by Josh, I have installed Deep Freeze by Faronics Corp. Two months of completely trouble free usage of the public computer. Freeze the computer so that every time you boot after that the machine is put back to the configuration at the time of freezing; viruses gone, private files gone, etc. I cannot recommend it more highly and it cost me about 35 Euro, worth every penny, but I do not know if they do a Linux version.

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Scotch Argus

16 years

Thanks for the recommendation about that - I'll have a look at it, certainly seems a neccessity to have something like that on a public terminal.

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