How to charge for the WiFi Internet service?
Many businesses provide WiFi Internet for guests and visitors, and some are listed below.
- Hospitality businesses, motels, hotels, resorts.
- Vacation destinations, campgrounds, RV parks.
- Trade shows.
- Airports.
- Cruise ships and ferries.
The business has a significant cost to install and operate the guest WiFi system.
Let's look at the example of a hotel.
A 200-room hotel might have 50 wireless access points installed around the property to give WiFi coverage in all parts of the property. The installation requires Ethernet cabling from each wireless access point back to PoE switches. The switches connect to the Internet controller such as the Guest Internet product. The controller provides the login page and generates codes for the guests to login, this ensures that only guests use the service. The controller also sets the maximum data speed per guest so that the Internet service can be shared between all guests. The controller connects to the ISP service or might be two ISP services combined for greater bandwidth. The hotel installation example may cost up to $100.000 to install. The guests will use a lot of data each month and so the ISP service cost will be high, many ISPs charge for the volume of data used and so the monthly cost might be from $1000 to $5000, or more.
Many businesses charge guests and visitors for the WiFi Internet service
Airports are a good example. Many airports will provide 30 minutes of free Internet and then charge the travelers credit card $5 for each hour of use.
Airlines might charge $10 per flight for WiFi while frequent flyers get free access to the WiFi.
Businesses located in areas where there is limited 5G mobile coverage, such as campgrounds and RV parks, will charge an average of $10 per day for the WiFi service.
Motels and hotels have to advertise free WiFi to attract customers, however in many cases the free WiFi is a slow speed and the guest might pay $20 per day for the fast Internet speed. Many hotels include fast WiFi with their loyalty programs.
Cruise ships and ferries provide WiFi Internet using satellite services such as Starlink and will charge between $20 to $30 per day for the Internet service.
Special events like trade shows will have a charge for the exhibitor booths and a charge for visitors. The exhibitor booth charge does not break out the Internet fee but it may be $100 for the duration of the show. Visitors might pay $5 per hour or more to use the WiFi Internet service.
Any business that is using a satellite service such as Starlink for guest WiFi Internet will pay high fees for the data on top of the monthly subscription. The data charge might be $500 per TB of data used and a service that provides guests and visitors with the Internet might use 10TB to 20TB of data per month.
Many businesses that currently don’t charge for the guest or visitor WiFi Internet service are seeing operating costs rise
The monthly cost is the ISP charge plus maintenance and support of the WiFi network infrastructure. Internet controller products, such as those manufactured by Guest Internet, are installed so that a charge can be made for the WiFi service. The business can combine free and charged services with five different charging methods.
If your business has to begin charging for your WiFi Internet service for guests and visitors to recover costs please call us for advice.