Mesh Networking / Coffee Shop Configuration

rodion.zissou · August 23, 2014

I'm looking for some information on mesh networking, specifically Open-Mesh. Let me give you some back story.

I work at a popular Bay Area coffee shop, and of course we offer wifi. The owners are very concerned over "campers" and their effect on business. When I say camper, I'm referring to the customer which buys 1 cup of coffee and sits for hours taking up physical space and network bandwidth. We need to find a way to control wifi access efficiently. We would prefer NOT to charge for wifi directly, but instead offer access to customers based on purchase amount. Our POS provider (Revel Systems) does not offer this sort of feature, so I have to get creative. The only way I know to implement this kind of "wifi access based on sales amount" system would be to have a string (the wifi key) print after a certain amount has been spent on our product. The only fault to this would be that the key would need to be changed daily for obvious reasons. We wouldn't want someone spending the specified amount once and then having access indefinitely. This isn't difficult to implement aside from the fact that I am not here at the cafe everyday, and I don't arrive for work until 1hr after we have opened. Therefor, when searching for alternatives I came across a company called Open-Mesh (I believe these guys worked for Cicsco but branched off to form their own service) which provides a web-based router and networking control app called CloudTrax. CloudTrax would allow me to control our network from anywhere as well as implement a splash page for payed access, QOS control, and identification of bandwidth abusers.

I guess my question is - Has anyone had experience using Open-Mesh or similar products? I would be using two wired APs to provide coverage for our 1600sqft Cafe. I would need to use a 2.4ghz along side a 5ghz band because of the heavy 2.4ghz interference in our urban location. I was looking fror information on a forum called Spiceworks, and was met with with great adversity to using a mesh networking system. I got the impression the contributors their were Cisco employees and simply did not want a different tech than what they offer being implemented. But I could be way off base.

Do any of you have experience with Open-Mesh or mesh networking in general? Have any of you tried managing wifi access in a public location under similar conditions? Thanks for taking the time guys. I'm sure someone will have some useful input.

Edit*

Also, if any of you know a good forum for networking information, I'd be grateful for your suggestion.