In brief
Cut off a guest who hits the daily quota, or slow them down? The cost of each approach, a practical recipe using the box's speed, session, idle and quota settings, and how to announce it.
On a guest network a handful of devices can eat the whole line. A phone downloading video, a laptop pulling updates, a guest streaming for hours. Everyone else slows down and the complaint lands on you. The answer is a set of settings known as "fair use". This post compares the two classic approaches (cutting off and slowing down), gives a practical recipe with Hotspot-Box's plan settings, and explains how to tell your guests about it.
Is the problem really the quota?
First, a distinction: in most venues the problem is not "guests download too much" but "guests download too fast at the same time". If one device can pull 50 Mbps, it slows everyone in a 20-seat café. If that device is capped at 10 Mbps, the total load stays predictable. That is why the first tool of fair use is not the quota but the speed limit. The quota comes second and mostly works as a seat belt.
Two approaches: cut off or slow down
| Cut off at quota | Slow down at quota | |
|---|---|---|
| What the guest feels | Connection ends, portal reappears | Internet continues but drags |
| Complaint | "Why did it kick me off?" | "Why is it slow?" |
| Messaging, maps, payments | Interrupted | Keep working |
| Video | Stops | Continues in low quality or stutters |
| Implementation | Simple, one limit | Two speed tiers, more settings |
| Where it fits | Short-stay waiting areas, events | Accommodation, dormitories, long sessions |
Cutting off is clear but harsh; losing the connection mid-message or mid-payment leaves a bad memory. Slowing down is gentle but can create a "your internet is terrible" impression, because the guest does not know the slowness comes from their own quota.
Which settings does the box have?
In Hotspot-Box every limit is defined inside the plan, in one place, and works regardless of the access point brand:
- Speed: separate Mbps values for download and upload
- Session length: the maximum duration of one sign-in
- Idle timeout: when a session closes if no traffic flows
- Device count: how many devices one verification may bring in
- Daily quota: the total data a guest may use in a day
When these five dials work together, the question of what happens at the quota rarely comes up at all, because the speed limit already sets a ceiling. The arithmetic is simple: at 10 Mbps one device can pull at most about 4.5 GB per hour, but in real use phones stay far below that. A 1 GB daily quota, a 2-hour session and 10 Mbps together strike the balance of "the normal guest never notices, the heavy user hits the wall".
Suggested values
The values below are suggestions from our own lab tests; they ship as ready templates in the box and are your starting point.
| Template | Speed (down/up) | Session | Idle | Devices | Daily quota | Suitable venues |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 10/5 Mbps | 2 hours | 15 min | 2 | 1 GB | Café, restaurant, shop, hairdresser, gym |
| Conference | 5/2 Mbps | 4 hours | 10 min | 1 | 500 MB | Events, trade fairs, waiting rooms, cinemas, bank branches |
| Long stay | 15/5 Mbps | 24 hours | – | 3 | 5 GB | Hotels, serviced apartments, dormitories, hospitals, residential complexes |
| Staff | 20/10 Mbps | 10 hours | 30 min | 3 | No quota | Offices, factories, business towers, logistics, tutoring centres |
The long-stay template turns on device memory for 7 days, so the guest does not request a new code every morning. The staff template uses 30 days.
Practical recipe: slow-down feel first, quota as the seat belt
You can get the "slow down" experience without defining a separate tier in the box:
- Keep the speed low. For a standard venue 10/5 Mbps is more than enough for most guests. The speed limit is itself the slow-down, applied before any quota is reached.
- Leave the quota generous. 1 GB does not fill up with normal use in a day; a guest who fills it is already a heavy user.
- Keep session and idle times short. A guest who leaves the table drops after 15 minutes and stops occupying the line.
- Do not run a second plan for peak hours. Complexity grows and staff lose track of which plan sits on which coupon.
In accommodation the logic flips: speed a little higher, session 24 hours, quota 5 GB. Here the quota really is the seat belt; it stops any single room from consuming the line on its own.
How to tell guests
If there is a limit, guests should know it beforehand. Three places:
- The portal sign-in screen: one line, with numbers. "Free Wi-Fi: 10 Mbps, 2 hours, 1 GB per day."
- The terms of use: a fair-use clause, plus a note that the venue may change the limits.
- The post-login screen or announcement: say what happens at the quota. "When your daily quota is used up your connection ends; you can sign in again tomorrow."
What to avoid is hiding the limit, or writing "unlimited" and then cutting off. What annoys guests most is not slowness; it is surprise.
Example scenario
Picture a patisserie. Forty guests at the weekend, most on phones. The owner applied the Standard template as is and wrote "10 Mbps, 2 hours, 1 GB" on the portal. Thanks to the speed limit no single device can fill the line; thanks to the idle timeout, devices of guests who have left drop off. The daily quota kicks in only a few times a week, and only for guests watching long videos. Nobody had to check "how much did you use"; the plan did the work on its own.
See how the templates adapt to your business on the Industries page and common settings questions in the FAQ. To work out your own values together, get in touch.