Hospitality
Hotels and guesthouses
Guests look for Wi-Fi the moment they reach their room. Hotspot-Box serves it from lobby to top floor through one portal, with the Law 5651 records kept in the hotel.
- SMS to foreign numbers
- Coupons sized to the stay
- Two SSIDs, one box
- 250 concurrent devices
A password passed hand to hand
In most hotels the Wi-Fi password sits on a card at the front desk. The same password serves the guest, their children, the friend waiting for a taxi and the neighbour across the street. Nobody knows which device belongs to whom, and when a complaint arrives there is no record to show.
Foreign guests are a separate headache. Their number starts with +49 or +7, the code does not arrive, and the front desk ends up in the middle of an argument. Floor density is similar: thirty rooms on one corridor start streaming at the same hour and speed drops for everyone.
Then there is the guest who moves. They connect in the lobby, go up to their room, land on another access point and the portal appears again. A portal asking for a code the third time becomes the first line of the review.
What the law expects from a hotel
Law 5651 treats a business that opens internet access to its guests as a collective-use provider and expects internal IP allocation records to be kept, protected with a time stamp and retained for 2 years. The hotel's particular twist is that guests stay briefly and leave: a record can be requested long after that stay. This page is not legal advice; seek counsel for your own situation.
This page is not legal advice; confirm your obligations with your legal adviser.
Setting up in a hotel
- 1
The box sits between the modem and the switch that feeds the guest network. Modem, switch and access points stay as they are; no extra AP licences.
- 2
A VLAN is created for the guest network. Front-desk PCs, the camera recorder and the office network stay outside it.
- 3
Two SSIDs are defined on the same box: an SMS-code portal for staying guests, and a coupon portal for meeting room, spa and restaurant visitors.
- 4
Client isolation is enabled on the access points so guests cannot see each other's devices. Fast roaming between floors (802.11k/r/v) is the AP's job; identity and session live on the box, so a guest who changes AP does not log in again.
- 5
Smart TVs, in-room tablets and the lobby printer bypass the portal through MAC exemption.
Login method
Sign-in method
- SMS code
- Coupon
- Remembered device
SMS code is the primary method for staying guests; foreign numbers can be routed through a separate provider. Size coupons to the stay: give a three-night guest a coupon valid for four days and the guest waiting for a transfer after check-out stays connected in the lobby. Recommended plan template (long stay): 15/5 Mbps, 24-hour session, 3 devices, 5 GB/day, device remembered for 7 days.
Ready-made plan templates
Speed, session and device count are set per plan on the box, independent of the access point brand. The values below are our own lab recommendations and can be changed in the panel.
- Recommended for this sector
Extended stay
Hotels, serviced apartments, dormitories, hospitals, residential complexes
- Speed (down / up)
- 15 / 5 Mbps
- Session
- 24 hours
- Idle timeout
- 30 min
- Devices
- 3
- Daily quota
- 5 GB
- Remembered device
- 7 days
No new code every day; in dormitories the remembered window can span the whole term.
Standard
Cafés, restaurants, shops, bakeries, salons, gyms
- Speed (down / up)
- 10 / 5 Mbps
- Session
- 2 hours
- Idle timeout
- 15 min
- Devices
- 2
- Daily quota
- 1 GB
- Remembered device
- Off
Keeps tables turning; a guest who wants more gets a coupon from the till.
Conference
Events, fairs, waiting lounges, cinemas, bank branches
- Speed (down / up)
- 5 / 2 Mbps
- Session
- 4 hours
- Idle timeout
- 10 min
- Devices
- 1
- Daily quota
- 500 MB
- Remembered device
- Off
Low speed and one device for many simultaneous users; capacity 250 concurrent devices.
Staff-guest
Offices, factories, office towers, logistics, tutoring centres
- Speed (down / up)
- 20 / 10 Mbps
- Session
- 10 hours
- Idle timeout
- 30 min
- Devices
- 3
- Daily quota
- None
- Remembered device
- 30 days
Registered users or coupon groups; separate groups for suppliers and subcontractors.
What is recorded
- Verified phone number (encrypted, masked in the panel) or coupon code
- Device MAC address and assigned internal IP
- Session start and end time
- NAT details where present
- Daily SHA-256 hash chain and RFC 3161 time stamp
What is not recorded
- Websites visited and URLs
- Messages and content
- Location
- Stay details
Example scenario
Example scenario: a 60-room city hotel
- Problem
- A three-storey hotel with 60 rooms. One password unchanged for years; on evenings when foreign guests cannot connect, the front desk is on the phone. The ground-floor meeting room takes outside participants two days a week.
- Solution
- The box was installed between the modem and the core switch. The guest SSID went to the SMS-code portal, the meeting SSID to coupons. A second SMS provider was configured for foreign numbers. The meeting organiser receives a printed list of 8-hour coupons for each event. Plan: 15/5 Mbps, 24-hour session, 3 devices, 5 GB/day.
- Outcome
- The front desk no longer reads out a password; guests connect with the code sent to their phone and the portal does not reappear when they change floors. Each day's record sits signed on the hotel's own box and is exported from the panel as a ZIP when needed.
An illustrative example; no real business is named.
Frequently asked
Do SMS codes reach foreign guests?
Yes. The box sends codes to international numbers. Because international messages are priced differently, you can route them through a separate provider account. For the rare case where a code does not arrive, a few spare coupons at the front desk are enough.
Is the guest cut off right after check-out?
Access ends when the coupon or the session expires. If you issue a coupon one day longer than the stay, a guest waiting for a transfer stays online in the lobby and the coupon lapses by itself the next day. The coupon of a guest who leaves early can be cancelled from the panel.
What about meeting-room visitors who are not staying?
You define a second SSID on the same box. Login on that network is by coupon; you print the organiser a list valid for the length of the event. Staying guests and day visitors are managed under the same record-keeping with separate plans.
Why is no re-login needed when a guest changes floors?
The session is held on the box, not on the access point. When a guest's device moves to another AP within the same VLAN, the box recognises it as the same device. How quickly the handover happens depends on 802.11k/r/v support, which is the access point's side of the job.
How do I share bandwidth fairly in the evening peak?
The plan template caps download and upload speed per person; our suggestion is 15/5 Mbps. A daily quota (for example 5 GB) stops a few devices from consuming the line on their own. Values are changed in one place on the box, regardless of AP brand.
A 20-minute demo for your own venue
Let's work out your device count and sign-in method together.
Request a demo