[dundee] Installing a Free WIFI Hotspot at the DCA

[Rick Moynihan]

Hi, everyone

After Magnus and Arron's  presentations at the DCA Upgrade event on
Wednesday; I spoke briefly to Clive Gillman (Director of the DCA).

It seems that Clive wishes to provide free wireless internet access at
the DCA as part of their role within the community.

Being an institution in a public space however their is a requirement
that they ensure (or at the very least strongly encourage) responsible
usage by their customers.

Hence they want to:

1) Ensure connecting clients are first directed to a DCA splash page,
informing them of events at the DCA etc...
2) Provide a level of content filtering
3) Ensure fair use of a limited resource (by time/download limits)

The main concern here though is to provide open access.

Clive had mentioned taking a look at ZoneCD ( http://www.publicip.net/
) which is a Linux LiveCD for doing precisely this.  I'd agree with
his assessment that it looks like a near ideal solution for this
problem, being both low cost and easy to deploy.

Clive's a busy guy however and doesn't have time to set this up
himself, though he has already provisioned the hardware.  Having
spoken to Clive over the years, he asked me whether I would be willing
to do this for him.  Though it looks like an easy job and their may be
a small pot of money involved, I'm conscious that my free time is
limited and that I'd rather not personally be responsible for
maintaining and supporting this system.

So it occurred to me, maybe a better solution for the DCA would be to
have the LUG itself maintain and support this.  That way the DCA get
some notion of ongoing support and assistance and perhaps some of the
younger members of the LUG get some valuable (CV worthy) experience.
Plus I think it's good for the LUG to engage with such things.

I'm thinking maybe a few LUG members could set this up & perhaps
document it on the website.

I'm not sure how much money Clive had in mind, but after some thought
it seems there are 2 options:

1) Pay the individual(s) who do the work
2) Donate the money to the LUG or another good cause.

I personally have a preference for (2) but I'd be happy to see what
other people think of this.  I don't know yet what the implications
are for the DCA or the LUG, but it seems like it's a discussion worth
having.

Interested in your thoughts,

--
Rick Moynihan
rick.moynihan at gmail.com
http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/blog/