Billing, Auth and auth types for fixed wireless

[Wolfie001]

Okay, So i'm falling deeper into the billing sor a WISP i'm trying to get setup. I'm wondering how the rest of you have your billing and auth setup. and any other useful info and tips. i have a few extra PC's laying around i can use as servers. any and all (almost) all advise is welcome, I'll only be starting out with a few people. but with any luck i will be expanding, I'd like to use paypal as my CC company/ merchant acct (unless there's a better solution, Idealy I'd like a setup so i can set users bandwith going to there inhome cpe, most likely as CPE i'll use a bullet or NS. can any one think of any thing intigrated, i can install load on a server with a couple of NICs run it threw the server... well i'm going to stop here and see what advice i can get!

thanks in advance!

[WHT]

What country are you in?

[Wolfie001]

I'm in the US =) i know bad spelling :P

[mohave_steve]

Wolfie,

I know most here are likely using a solution that they host & run themselves. I am working on educating myself in that area as well so I can't help you there.

However, if you are looking for a hosted solution I have use a company in College Station TX that provided 24x7 tech support (800#) for customers as well as all billing & collection. They fielded all customer tech calls (quite well) and monitored the network for trouble. They would simply send me a check every month. For that they charged a flat 30% of the revenue.

I am not sure if I am going to use them in my current setup as I am charging less and not offering 24x7 support to customers.

www.nnu.com

[Wolfie001]

at this point i don't think i can afford 30% profit margins are going to be Extremely thin for a while as it is. i was looking at some software called jbilling and it's Relay neat, i just can't figure out how to integrate it with an auth server, and i don't know how i'll authenticate my customers as it is, i was thinking some thing like pppoe, hmm that gives me a good idea, i wounder if one could set there CPE such as a bullet to do pppoe have the bullet authenticate and then send the connection on down to there in home linksys or belkin or what ever the user wants. I'll look in that direction and see what i can come up with, if i find any thing useful I'll share

[WHT]

I'm in the US
What will you be using for CALEA compliance?

[csg01]

Okay, So i'm falling deeper into the billing sor a WISP i'm trying to get setup. I'm wondering how the rest of you have your billing and auth setup. and any other useful info and tips. i have a few extra PC's laying around i can use as servers. any and all (almost) all advise is welcome, I'll only be starting out with a few people. but with any luck i will be expanding, I'd like to use paypal as my CC company/ merchant acct (unless there's a better solution, Idealy I'd like a setup so i can set users bandwith going to there inhome cpe, most likely as CPE i'll use a bullet or NS. can any one think of any thing intigrated, i can install load on a server with a couple of NICs run it threw the server... well i'm going to stop here and see what advice i can get!

thanks in advance!

[csg01]

Wolfie,

Please check site www.skyspot-net.com for billing services. They charge very low fee and provide a lot of services through skyspot dashboard. You can see screenshots on their website or after signing in.
You set up a company online and can activate own PayPal account for billing services and have own captive portal in very short time.

[bajataz]

Hi guys i am currently using a company called Sputnik ( sputnik.com )

They charge $19.95 a month for each router you need authinaction on, and as it turns out yyou can now flash almost all NS2 and NS5 and PS2 and PS5 with DDwrt and then set up chillispot, sputnik, or others.

Also for a fixed cost of $399.00 you can setup up your own server using preconfigured software. check out wifigator.com

[steve_h]

I use wifigator also

[MaximumISP]

Wireless Orbit
WirelessOrbit.com

[rconaway]

Full Disclosuere: I'm a Patonrsoft FirstSpot dealer.

However, we used them at Stratosphere in Vegas for 5 years. After 2 years, we became a US dealer because we had so much experience with the product. It's Windows based meaning it's really simple to set up, rock solid, and really easy to support for non-technical tech support people. It may not be the cheapest but adding in cost of support over 5 years, it was literally free since we never had issues. We ran ours off IBM Xeon Rack Mount servers we bought off e-bay for $200 for year. We have had as many as 800 people logged in although you better have horsepower if you have more than 400. We are currently running 220 users 24x7 off a Pentium 4 server right now with no issue. The new version even has fail-over capability.

Just another option.

[texnet]

I justed joined this forum as we started using some Ubiquiti products, but I have been an ISP since 1995. I started provide wireless service many years ago, before all the cheap APs and CPEs!! I am using a high end customer service software with Radius but you can get Radius products for free or cheap. Take a look at the MicroTik series to use as your switch, router and radius client. You plug your bridge APs into the ethernet ports, setup the hotspot function on each port, point the MikroTik to your radius server, put your customer MAC list in the Radius server and you now are providing authentication. You can also setup up/down speeds to be controlled by the radius server as long as it can use Wispr attributes.

Hope this helps!

Ronnie

[Erick]

I tried several options before using Radius Manager from www.dmasoftlab.com. Its a very stable system that can do all your authentication and bandwith aswell as your hotspot logins. The do have online demo session available. There is an admin and client side available and the support on system is at the least 5 star. They are based in the US Im not from the US but if someone returns your mail within 30 minutes with the precise answer they must be good.

[uncleshred]

Any open source favorites? Or of equal interest; Any Radius type AAA packages you wish you had never tried?

[Airwip]

if you work with AP---> CPE STYLE NETWORK the best will be a mikrotik box
as PPPoE server and freeradius to authenticate if you not so depp in linux
to build your own extensions for billing an payment There is a very good Radius
from dma softlab . It's still linux but relativ easy to install and if you need help
you get it from them with in minutes. As for that you are from The US, mikrotik has a Celea Paket so this won't be the problem .

just my 0.02€

[fudge]

If i were you, I wouldn't use a Paypal only solution for several problems.

1. Paypal has problems with their service about 2-3 times a week which affects payments. Most of the times, the IPN (Instant Payment Notification) is not working or working with a delay (not minutes, HOURS!). If IPN is not working, PayPal server doesn't send a message to you when a payment is completed, which means your user won't get the access, however he/she paid for it.

See for yourself in PayPal's own blog: http://www.paypaldeveloper.com/t5/Live-Site-Status/bg-p/mts_updates

This makes the whole service unreliable, and you always have problems.

2. PayPal is using their own security system which can be a hassle for end users. Based on the customers country, the credit card history and the purchase amount, PayPal requires users to register a PayPal account before their purchases. Furthermore PayPal may ask users to VERIFY their accont BEFORE they are able to pay. Users have to wait for their bank statement to complete the verification process which prevents them to buy a HotSpot access at your location at the moment they wanted to. This means they cannot use your HotSpot and you may loose money.

In 2004, PayPal announced the 'Account Optional' feature. Using this feature, buyers can pay for a product or service without having to sign up for a PayPal account. Unfortunately PayPal account optional doesn't work in every country. What worse is that verification IS required in certain cases.

Here's the official statement about this from PayPal, at 03-23-2007.

"1. In which cases the user have to verify the account before he can pay with credit card?

Depends on the transaction, the amount, the number of times the card has been used, the amount of the transaction, on what is being purchased, this is to name the most common. There are others that we do not know about for security reasons.

2. What countries are affected? (all or is there any country in which you don't force users to verify their accounts at all?)

All countries are affected.

3. What is the amount that they can pay without verifying?

Again, this depends on the transaction type across all transactions of that type. I don't have an answer since the system determines what it will accept at the time of the transaction after looking at what has gone on with all transactions.

Frank I.
PayPal Certified Developer
PayPal Merchant Technical Support
http://www.paypaldeveloper.com
PayPal, an eBay Company"

3. PayPal is always changing their IP addresses, and using different IPs from every country with DNS rotation. This means it is impossible to add all domain names or IPs of PayPal into your whitelist, so page will NOT LOAD properly fro some users, so they won't be able to pay.

That's why it is important to use a billing service which is using multiple billing solutions like http://www.hotspotsystem.com.

[rconaway]

I ran over 100,000 transactions through paypal for the last several years and only had problems twice. In both cases, we just made a couple changes in a few minutes. If you don't like Paypal, you can also use Worldpay.

[jetout]

im using paypal,nothing troubles

[jdmarti1]

I am using Freeside- open source - woohoo. Radius AAA from a server to my Mikrotik APs. Nearly all UBNT CPE. Works like a champ.

[omarvis]

i've trying DALORADIUS opensource

[rmichael]

I'm in the US
What will you be using for CALEA compliance?

arp cache poisoning :P

Do you have any suggestions regarding that?

[nareshkumarbk]

http://hotspotexpress.in try this for aaa billing

[dvdwalt]

You're welcome to try YFi Hotspot Manager

https://sourceforge.net/projects/hotcakes/

New features are constantly added :icon_smile:

And it is Open Source as always

[WHT]

Quote:
Originally Posted by WHT
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie001
I'm in the US
What will you be using for CALEA compliance?
arp cache poisoning :P

Do you have any suggestions regarding that?


What is your question?

[mhoppes]

I am using Freeside- open source - woohoo. Radius AAA from a server to my Mikrotik APs. Nearly all UBNT CPE. Works like a champ.

How do you like freeside? I'm considering it, but it's a toss up right now between them and billmax.

[Simon_Powercode]

Have you checked out Powercode?

[mhoppes]

Have you checked out Powercode?

Never even heard of it before just now.... any idea how much it costs?

[Simon_Powercode]

Never even heard of it before just now.... any idea how much it costs?

Yeah, it depends on the number of subscribers and the hardware you need to support the network.. give me a call/shoot me an email and I can get you a quote and a trial of the system.

simon@powercode.com or 920-351-1010

[JDEEN]

Hi, Lets say we have about 500 users.
Can you give a ball park figure

[Simon_Powercode]

Hi, Lets say we have about 500 users.
Can you give a ball park figure

Depends on the services you activate, you would be able to use the MicroMAXX for service/customer mangement which lists at $650 but we generally bundle into a deal for new customers.

Shoot me an email at simon@powercode.com and I can get you an accurate figure based on the services and hardware you'd need.

[1946.okie]

Any open source favorites? Or of equal interest; Any Radius type AAA packages you wish you had never tried?

Freeside is considered by some to be the champion of the open source group.

[Simon_Powercode]

Thanks to those of you that called in today to see a demonstration of Powercode based on this post.. hope you like what you saw.

If anyone else is interested, let me know, I'd be happy to setup a walk through of the system.