How to set up a WiFi network

WiFi is pretty much an essential these days for holiday accommodation. Keeping in touch is not just for the self-employed business guest who cannot fully disengage from the office. The huge rise of social networking means that your guests are just as likely to want to post their holiday snaps on Facebook as to pop a picture postcard in a post box. ‘Having a lovely time, wish you were here’ is a traditional postcard platitude that is now a tweet. The Internet has changed the world and has become central to our lives.

So how do you get your bed and breakfast or self-catering accommodation into the WiFi world? There are companies who will do it for you and charge accordingly. They will manage everything for you, but this can be an expensive way to do something that, ultimately, you can do yourself. Here is how.

Getting connected

Firstly, of course, you need to have a broadband Internet connection. The main types are ADSL and Cable. Cable tends to be available in urban areas mostly and gets you connected through the installation of a cable modem. ADSL, on the other hand, makes use of an ordinary BT Telephone line. You need to fit a device called a line splitter, a small box that goes between your incoming BT socket and into which you connect your voice telephone line and your router. Router? Read on.

The hub of your system

The router is the heart of a Local Area Network (LAN) and routes data around the system, also providing WiFi capability. What you need depends on your building and business. In a bed and breakfast or small hotel, the owners or staff are usually resident in the building and may want to share their own connection. There is no need for two telephone lines and two routers where one can suffice. In a cottage or flat, you will need a telephone line or cable connection, and a router but you won't have to worry about sharing it yourself. However, if you don't live there, you might want to ensure you can have remote access to it from the place where you do live.

The typical bed and breakfast situation implies a router that serves everyone in the property. However, you would be unwise to share your own password with your guests because they could then have access to computers on your network, which are connected to the same router.

Fortunately, modern routers are available that let you create several SSIDs. An SSID means a "Service Set Identifier" and is a label for each wireless service that your router offers. Cheap routers only offer one so these are no good for a B&B situation. You need a router that will allow you to create a second, separate SSID for your guests and that prevents them from having access to anything else except the Internet. This is called isolation, and it will cost you more – perhaps £150 – but it is essential to have this security.

So you would have two SSIDs in your house, e.g. ‘Riverview-owner’ and ‘Riverview-guest’ and both would have passwords. You will not, of course, tell your guests the password for ‘Riverview-owner’, and it will be something more like ‘F5&2fG*j’ than ‘river’!

The guest password should be changed regularly in case a guest passes it on, comes back to use it from a parked car later, or writes it down carelessly.

Location matters

The Router has got to be located somewhere and this is a dilemma. It needs to be in a place that gives the best radio coverage around the building. It also has to be connectable, have electricity and, ideally, be out of reach of guests and their children. (Routers are not dangerous but you don't want people pushing buttons to see what happens). You will need to connect it to the phone line splitter or the cable modem using a network cable. In some cases you might have to have phone wires installed around the building if the layout is problematic, but this will usually be an exception.

Set-up

Make sure to thoroughly read your new router’s user guide for proper set up. The main things you will need to set up include the security system and the type of WiFi. The most common modern security is Wireless Protected Access (WPA) or Wireless Protected Access 2 (WPA2) with Pre-Shared Key (password). The older WEP standard is not recommended and WPA2 is the best, but you can use WPA or WPA2. Not all portable devices support all of these WiFi security types.

You'll also need to set up the speed of the connection. The choices are 801.11b, g, or n. You should offer both g and n if you can. G is pretty universal, but n is faster, more recent, and will most probably reach further. Don't buy a router that does not offer "n" speeds.

Protecting yourself

You need to have some form of control when offering semi-public access to customers. The legal issues are still controversial and a grey area. There is a possibility, if only a small one, of you being held responsible for illegal download of copyright material by a guest. There has not yet been a case of a small provider of Wi-Fi getting into serious trouble but you can and should protect yourself by using some sort of "nanny" software. You cannot install on the computers that your guests bring with them so you need what is known as router-based web filtering. This is usually a subscription service and you will need to find a router that offers this service.

The relevant software has to be installed onto the router by you and you can configure it to decide what you want to allow and not allow. It provides for restrictions that prevent file-sharing, perhaps the biggest worry for you, and also can be set to prevent access to ‘adult’ websites, for instance. It is probably money well spent because you would be able to demonstrate that you had made a real effort at control, in the unlikely event that your connection was misused.

Big places

If your house is a large one, a wireless range extender may be useful. WiFi has trouble penetrating through thick masonry walls and solid floors so signal strength might attenuate in parts of the building because of that. A range extender essentially picks up the signal and boosts it, sending it on its way further round the house. It only needs a power supply.

Different issues for self caterers

There are a few more issues to take into account for self-catering accommodation. You ideally want the router located somewhere where it cannot be interfered with, ideally in a locked cupboard or the loft depending on the practicalities of your own building.

The other issue is remote access. Most routers will provide for this nowadays, but to have remote access you'll need what's called a ‘fixed Internet Protocol address’. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can offer this but may charge a bit more for it. An IP address is a numerical code that identifies a destination on the Internet.

Normally, a dynamic IP address is allocated by an ISP every time you connect, but it can change. So if you want to log into the router from 300 miles away, you need to know what the address is and that it won't change, ie a permanent address that is exclusive to your cottage.

Setting up remote access to the router from your home, for instance, means you can log in to check whether there is a working Internet connection if a guest tells you that he cannot get service. You can also see who is connected and there might be a log of what has been going on, Internet-wise, in the house. And of course you can change the WiFi password, which is especially important in a self-catering holiday home.

In a self-catering cottage the same issues about security, passwords and control arise as in a bed and breakfast, but you'll only need a single SSID.

It's achievable!

Setting up customer WiFi network yourself is within the capabilities and budget of a computer-literate owner. Begin by getting a decent modern router, not a cheap one. Sorting out the location and understanding and controlling security are also important aspects of setting up such a network for your own protection.