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Supported equipment

Cisco Business Wireless (CBW)

CBW140, CBW145, CBW150 and CBW240 access points. One runs a cut-down controller for the rest, so a small café and a six-point restaurant are the same job.

What you get

What this equipment can do

Three things decide what a venue actually gets. The first two are the same everywhere in this list. The third is where equipment differs, and it is the reason each page says so plainly.

Your own sign-in page

Your logo, your colours, your welcome message, in the guest's own language — and every way in you have switched on, from room number and surname to a tap on Google.

Plans that are enforced

Speed, time limit and how many devices each guest may bring, applied by the equipment itself rather than being a promise on a page.

Checkout does not cut a session short

At checkout we stop the guest signing in again, and the session they already hold runs to its time limit. Set sessions in hours rather than days and this rarely matters; a property that needs an immediate cut-off needs different equipment.

How the equipment talks to us: This equipment cannot encrypt those questions on its own, so we set up a private link between the site and us and they travel inside it. It dials out; nothing needs opening up on your broadband.

Before your installer starts

What has to be true first

None of this is work we do for you — it is the state the equipment needs to be in before the short part begins. A step that fails for something on this list is a wasted visit, which is why it is here rather than buried in a manual.

Not sure whether your site meets it? Send us a photo of the equipment and we will tell you.

Checklist

  • Firmware 10.6.2 or later.
  • Knowing which access point is the primary one. Everything is configured on it, and if it is replaced the configuration goes with it — take a backup once the site is working.
  • A fixed address for that primary access point.
  • A router on site able to hold the private link. The CBW cannot hold one itself.
Worth knowing

The things that catch people out

Every make has its own quirks. These are the ones that matter on Cisco Business Wireless (CBW) — not because they are problems, but because knowing them in advance turns a site visit into a short one.

Set session lengths in hours. On a café or a restaurant, a session measured in hours does most of the work that checkout cut-off would do elsewhere — the visit ends before the session does.
The older CBW models are past end of sale. The CBW140AC, CBW145AC and CBW240AC have been superseded. A new purchase should specify the current CBW150AX; the older models are covered here for a property that already owns them.
The setup

How it goes on the day

Roughly half an hour on a straightforward site, most of it waiting for equipment to restart. Your console writes out every value for your property in advance — there is nothing to work out and nothing to invent.

1

Add the equipment in your console

You register the router, controller or access point in your Resort Manager Hotspot console. It generates everything the following steps need — the address of your sign-in page, the credentials, the settings — already filled in with your property's own values. Nobody copies a setting out of a manual and nobody types a password twice.

2

Let guests reach the sign-in page

A guest who has not signed in yet has no internet, so the equipment is given a short list of addresses that stay open regardless — the sign-in page among them. Your console writes that list out in the exact form this equipment expects.

3

Bring up the private link

This equipment has no encryption of its own for these questions, so a private link is brought up between the site and us and they travel inside it. It dials out from the site, so again nothing has to be opened up on your broadband.

4

Point the guest network at your sign-in page

The guest Wi-Fi is set to open, with your branded page in place of the equipment's own. Usage recording is switched on at the same time — that is both your reporting and, in the countries that require it, the connection log you are obliged to keep.

5

Prove it with a real phone

Join the network on a phone, sign in, and watch the session appear in your console with the right plan against it. That is the point at which anything is actually proved.

Other equipment

Comparing makes?

Most sites come down to a choice between two or three of these. The pages below cover the ones closest to Cisco Business Wireless (CBW).

Connects the same way

Equipment that reaches us by the same route, so the same things have to be true at the property: Grandstream GWN · LANCOM Public Spot · Netgear WAC (standalone) · Nomadix EG gateway

All 40 supported makes →

Have this equipment already?

Then there is nothing to buy. Tell us what you have and we will confirm the details for your site — or set the whole thing up for you, which is a service we offer.