Effective Wi-Fi access control (small business)

[JustTakeTheFirstStep]

I am running a coffee shop in an apartment complex.

There are about 30 guests approaching WiFi.

However, passwords have been exposed for a long time and recently outsiders are using Wi-Fi without permission.

I want to control the access of Wi-Fi to only apartment residents.

I think it is inefficient to change passwords from time to time.

I think of MAC Filtering, but I think it is impossible to manage the MAC of so many people.

The number of apartment residents is estimated to be more than 1,000.

Please let me know if there is a good way.

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi

  PSK is hard to manage, mac filter is inefficient. Someone just need to capture some traffic and use a valid mac address to get in.

 What you need is a portal where your users can input its data, create a password and use the network. You can even use Social media authentication depending on the solution you choose. 

 Considering the size of your company, probably your are not going to buy a fancy solution like Cisco ISE or similar. But, with a bit effort you can do something quite good using a linux machine with an open source solution. Search for "open source wifi guest portal" on Google and you end up with tons of option.

-If I helped you somehow, please, rate it as useful.-

[JustTakeTheFirstStep]

Thank you for answer.

Please briefly describe how you can control access using the Guest Portal.

Mac Filtering controls access by collating Mac addresses.

What mechanism does the you told Guest Portal control user access?

Have a nice day.

[Haydn Andrews]

What setup are you currently running (AP model, Controller)? This will give us a better understanding of options to suggest.

One option i could make is potentially changing to a Meraki AP, and using their guest portal and give each user there own username and password - Its a pain to enter them all but then its just individual users per login. You also have options to limit how many devices they can login with.

You can possibly qualify for a free Meraki AP here: https://meraki.cisco.com/lp/free-demo 

The other question is there a reason your only wanting to give access to the apartment residents? there are a number of studies showing customers if there is no WiFi will go else where. You could do something like social login where they have to like your Facebook page to get access, then you have followers who you can market to.