Metro Area Networks

Benefit from a Wi-Fi HotZone in Your City or Municipality

Provide Cost-Effective High-Speed Internet Access for a Broad Range of Uses

Metro Area Wi-Fi HotZones can provide cities and municipalities with a host of benefits, including:

• High-speed Internet for residents, businesses, and government organizations for less money than wired solutions
  
• Improved communication and civic awareness using broadly-available community calendar
  
• Ad-hoc networks for conventions, festivals, special events or emergencies
  

While many municipalities recognize the benefits of setting up a Metro Area HotZone, there have historically been issues associated with wireless public access networks that discourage cities from moving ahead with installing this type of network.  Nomadix offers solutions to the most pressing concerns identified by those planning to implement a HotZone.

Opportunity for Revenue Generation

Installing a Metro Area HotZone can provide convenient, fast Internet access for organizations such as police or city workers.  However, cities can leverage the same HotZone network to generate multiple sources of revenue without additional capital expenditure.  For example, cities can offer high-speed Wi-Fi access to its residents for a monthly fee, and offer fee-based access to visitors.  Nomadix offers a number of options for delivering different types of pay-for-use service, whether credit card-based, subscription based, or using scratch cards.

The Nomadix Advantage

Nomadix offers a comprehensive solution for Metro Area HotZones, including its highly-regarded Access Gateways that feature the industry-tested and proven Nomadix Service Engine (NSE) software, which provides:

• Support for Disparate Wireless Clients – Nomadix’ Dynamic Address Translation™ (DAT) technology makes sure all users can get connected, regardless of system or browser configuration.
  
• User Authentication – Nomadix simultaneously supports multi-mode authentication, including browser-based, 802.1x, and Smart Clients, and features WISPr-compliant RADIUS support for billing flexibility.  A walled garden feature presents select web pages to users before authentication, allowing cities to present information on how to connect as well as current information such as community calendars and events.
  
• Billing Management – Seamless integration with existing systems and integrated RADIUS server allow user identification and billing using MAC addresses, username/password, or port; billing using credit cards, scratch cards, or monthly subscriptions; and the ability to bill by time, volume, or bandwidth.
  
• Security – Nomadix offers industry-standard VPN support for PPTP and IPsec, and adds its patent-pending iNAT™ technology that allows multiple simultaneous VPN tunnels to provide all users with high levels of security.  To protect against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, Nomadix features Session Rate Limiting (SRL), MAC filtering, and ICMP packet blocking from non-authenticated users.  Nomadix also supports Lawful Intercept tracking logs.
  
• Management and Administration – Nomadix Access Gateways and other NSE-enabled devices feature remote web-based management using standard CLI (Telnet and serial) interfaces and extensive SNMP support.  RADIUS-driven auto-configuration simplifies initial gateway deployment and allows centralized management of all NSE-enabled devices within the HotZone.
  

In addition to providing superior solutions to the areas outlined above, Nomadix provides additional features ideal for a HotZone:

• Ability to Support Roaming Users – The Wholesale Roaming feature allows visiting subscribers to access the HotZone using existing Wi-Fi subscriptions and/or billing relationships.
• Home Page Redirection – Redirects the HotZone user’s browser to the city’s sign-up page, with the ability to redirect both pre- and post-authentication.  This gives the municipality significant opportunities to provide community information or leverage marketing and promotional opportunities with local businesses.
• Policy-Based Traffic Shaping – Allows bandwidth usage to be controlled by minute, hour, day, or week on a per-device basis.
  

Solution Set

Nomadix offers the AG 5500 Gateway with the optional Metro Bundle for deployment in a Metro Area HotZone. The AG 5500 runs the NSE Core, which has been optimized for Public Access deployments such as in Digital City environments. 

To successfully deploy a Metro HotZone, Nomadix recommends the following:

Learn more about the Nomadix Access Gateways or information on Where to Buy.