A hotspot is a place that provides wireless internet access (can be free or paid) to those devices which are Wi-Fi enabled. A Wi-Fi enabled devices can be anything ranging from Laptops, Wi-Fi enabled phones, Gaming devices & personal computers.

Hotspots can often be found in hotels, restaurants, resorts, café, shopping malls, pubs, libraries, office buildings, bars, airports and many more useful locations. Moreover, many renowned universities and schools also have Wireless Network in their campus. As of now, Wi-Fi Hotspots can be found in over 200,000 destinations in 135 countries.

In the modern world, every educational hub has got Internet connection but still they are not wireless, most of them still depends on those jumbled wires that often create hazards to the networks.  Creating a wireless setup in those areas is as simple as purchasing one Access Point (AP) and connecting the AP with the gateway box.

History

Brett Stewart, a worker at AMD, first introduced the concept of Wi-Fi in San Francisco in August 1993. Though the term ‘HotSpot’ was first introduced by Nokia about after five years Stewart referred to public accessible wireless LANs.

Though the idea of Hotspot continued to spread, it didn’t officially start until it was finalized by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE had initiated standard for wireless LANs, named 802.11 standard (Wi-Fi). Basically there are three different standards defined under 802.11, those are: 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. A fourth standard, 802.11n is being developed and is expected to be approved in October 2008. Each standard have has its own merits and demerits that provide access to public LANs.

Types of Hotspots

There are basically two types of Hotspots:

• Commercial Hotspots
• Free Wi-Fi Hotspots

Commercial Hotspots: Many Hotspots are not free to access and charge a certain fees for it. It can be monthly or commission from the end-user income. The commercial hotspots may feature a walled garden that restricts unauthorized access to the Wi-Fi zones. It also features payment option using credit card, PayPal or other payment devices that use SSL (Secure Sockets Layers, an encryption protocol that creates a secure internet connection).

Major airports like Frankfurt Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and other business hotels have commercial hotspots. In those commercial hotspots, the users are redirected to a captive portal for authentication and payment.

Free Hotspots: These hotspots can be of two ways:-

• Open Public Network: This is a network where anyone can access the Wi-Fi without any restrictions; no authentication is done in this type of networks. This is the most unsecured way of Wi-Fi access. A Wi-Fi router is the only thing that is required to set up an open public network.
• Closed Public Network: This network is very similar to the commercial hotspots but in this network, the user doesn’t have to pay for the Wi-Fi access. A software, Hotspot Management System, installed in the router itself or can also use an external computer to operate, is used to authenticate the user so as to restrict the unidentified data sniffers.

Security

One of the biggest disadvantages of hotspots is its security. Hotspots are often attacked by hackers or data sniffers who log in to those networks that have the minimum level of security concerns. Hotspots do authenticate the users but that doesn’t prevent the user’s data to be sniffed from a hacker. Since wireless networks broadcast data over radio waves, they can be attacked by anyone on air.

Some venues do offer VPN (Virtual Private Network), but at an additional fees. The fee depends from network to network.

There is also a term called ‘Poisoned Hotspot’ which is a free public hotspot setup by the data sniffers with an intension to steal the information using the wireless network. This can be prevented using VPN.