Wi-Fi Overview

Almost every cafe already has Wi-Fi, and almost every cafe gives the internet on it away. People sit down with a phone, use the line, and leave. HandyCafe lets you decide who gets on, how much of the line they take, and whether their time online is paid for.

What it takes

• A gateway. The Wi-Fi runs through the same box that carries the rest of the cafe's internet. See Gateway.
• An access point. The one you already have is usually fine.
• A decision. Open access with a speed cap, or access behind a code.

Two ways to run it

Open, but controlled. Guests join without typing anything. You still see every device, still cap what the guest side takes, and still keep the guest network apart from the till and the stations. Nothing is charged. This is the internet as a courtesy, without it costing your paying customers their latency.

Behind a code. A phone joining the Wi-Fi gets a page asking for a code or a member sign-in. The code is what the cashier sells: an hour online, a day, or an amount of data. Members sign in with their own account and get whatever their membership carries.

The switch between the two is one setting, and you can change your mind at any time.

Why a cafe charges for access

A phone on the cafe Wi-Fi takes bandwidth the paying customers wanted. Charging for the time online is one answer, and a cheap hourly code is one most guests accept without thinking about it. Turning it into a reason to become a member is the other: the member signs in with their account and pays nothing extra, which makes the membership worth having.

Neither is the right answer for every cafe. What matters is that it is a decision rather than the default.

Where each part lives

Speed limits for the guest side are in Devices and speed, and what guests reached is in the connection log.