Hello everyone. This is my first time posting. I hope someone can answer a question for me. A firend of mine is opening up a bar at which he wants to provide a free WIFI internet connection to his customers. He will have a cable internet connection going coming into the bar which will be connected to an office PC, cash registers, credit card machines, etc. The part of the network associated with all the financial aspects of the business (cash register, CC machines, etc) is being professionally set up but he asked me how he could use the same internet connection the "secure" financial parts are using to provide free WIFI. I suggested that he just install a splitter in between the cable modem and whatever peripherals (cash register, CC machine, etc) are being used and connect a wireless router to it and he can keep the wireless router wide open for his customers but don't connect anything else he would want to keep secure to it. Was this bad advice? Would someone be able to access protected financial info that way or would my idea simply not work? Please let me know what you think or if I have not made my question clear. Thanks in advance for your help.
Free WIFI For Retail Business
- Thread starter vne147
- Start date
Geoff
VIP Member
You can't split the cable connection and have two separate modems. You would want to put the WiFi on the DMZ, so they can not access anything on the internal LAN. This is simple to setup, you would have your router connected to your modem, and a wireless router connected to the router/modem. You would go into the modem/router config and set the IP of the wireless router as the DMZ.
Omega,
Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I asked my original question. I wasn't talking about splitting the coaxial before it went into the modem, I was talking about splitting it after it came out of the modem before it went into the computer but then I realized that's not even a coaxial cable at that point, it's an ethernet cable. Brainfart!!! Anyway, I'm straight now. I attached a quick diagram showing the setup you described just to make sure I understand it correctly. In the setup, if I understand correclty, there are two routers, a wireless one and a wired one. You are saying that I should assign the IP of the wireless router to the DMZ in the wired router settings, correct? Will the wired router automatically assign the IP of the wireless one, and will it always be the same? Is there a special type of wired router I need to purchase or a specific feature I should ensure it has? Once again thanks for your help.
Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I asked my original question. I wasn't talking about splitting the coaxial before it went into the modem, I was talking about splitting it after it came out of the modem before it went into the computer but then I realized that's not even a coaxial cable at that point, it's an ethernet cable. Brainfart!!! Anyway, I'm straight now. I attached a quick diagram showing the setup you described just to make sure I understand it correctly. In the setup, if I understand correclty, there are two routers, a wireless one and a wired one. You are saying that I should assign the IP of the wireless router to the DMZ in the wired router settings, correct? Will the wired router automatically assign the IP of the wireless one, and will it always be the same? Is there a special type of wired router I need to purchase or a specific feature I should ensure it has? Once again thanks for your help.
Geoff
VIP Member
That is exactly what you need to do. You manually assign the IP of the wireless router, and then enter that in the wired router's configuration page for the DMZ. I would test it to make sure you can't access the other computers as well before having customers join the WiFi.
You may also want to have the network on the wireless router to be different, such as be 192.168.1.xxx, while the internal network would be 10.0.2.xxx for instance (different subnet as well).
You may also want to have the network on the wireless router to be different, such as be 192.168.1.xxx, while the internal network would be 10.0.2.xxx for instance (different subnet as well).