Benefits of a Wi-Fi Hotspot Network

Wi-Fi Hotspots are usually set up indoors and serve some type of retail establishment such as a coffee shop, book store, airport, hotel lobby or other establishment that provides services to people that roam from one city to the next on business.

A Wi-Fi Hotspot usually consists of a single access point (radio) and a billing gateway. A complete Wi-Fi Hotspot should cost around $500 to build and operate.

Customers of Wi-Fi Hotspots are usually business travelers who are equipped with some type of computing device such as a laptop, personal digital assistant (PDA) or a cell phone that uses their own wireless CPE (customer premises equipment) antenna to access the Wi-Fi Hotspot wireless network.

The most important feature of Wi-Fi Hotspots is that customers provision themselves. As soon as a user is within range of a Wi-Fi Hotspot and the click on the view wireless networks option on Microsoft XP operating system, they are presented with the Wi-Fi Hotspot's Landing Page.

The landing page is the first screen that a user as they attempt to login to the network. The landing page provides a form where the customer can enter their username and password in order to logon to the network

If the user doesn't have a username and password, they can buy one with a valid credit card.

Most Wi-Fi Hotspots are a member of one or more roaming network aggregator services that allow their users to log on to any member network with a single username and password.

Allowing any customer to sign up for service while roaming into a Wi-Fi Hotspot is a very important feature that is included NISP networks.

In a NISP network, the access point is set up as an outdoor Wi-Fi Hotspot. Once the operator turns on the access point, all neighbors with some type of wireless antenna that are within range of the broadcast signal can sign themself up as a customer.

Next, let's discuss a WISP and the benefits of using high-gain antennas.