I have this theory... about bad guests

When I upgraded the WiFi network for the holiday cottage I gained the ability to monitor the identity of the devices accessing the network. I can tell when a device attaches and leaves the network. I can also see how much data the device has loaded.

As the WiFi network for the cottage is a private password protected network, I'm able to work out when our guests are using the network. If necessary I can access journal records to detail exactly which device accesses the network at any given time.

I've noticed a correlation between bad guests,  (i.e. they moan about issues without good cause) and the amount of use they make of the Wifi they use during their stay. Most people come for a holiday and are out of the cottage a lot of the time, these people complain the least and usually give us a good rating.  People who stay inside the cottage most of the time have a tendency to moan, but people who do not use our WiFi network often moan about minor things. 

It's early days yet, but it will be interesting to see how this theory stands up to the test of time.

Network Upgrade at the cottage complete

Following the earlier plans, yesterday at the cottage the Broadband internet connectivity was migrated from the old ADSL method (Plusnet) to the the faster FTTC internet connectivity. This is the service type named as "Superfast" by the underlying provider BT Openreach. I hadn't been aware of the exact timing of the changeover, but was alerted by an email just before noon to my smartphone. The message was that the Ubiquiti access point in the cottage had become disconnected.  Our UniFi cloud-based network monitoring tool keeps a constant eye on the network access point device, connected devices, and lets me know of any problems. I checked online to discover there's only been a couple of minutes of outage.

I took a trip to the cottage later to check what Internet bandwidth was actually being delivered. The raw figure is 78 mbps download and 18 mbps upload with a 24 msec ping time. This is a good result for future guests in our cottage. I've set the Guest Wifi (password protected and encrypted) band to 45/5 mbps. This should be more than adequate for a couple on holiday. I reserved some bandwidth for the network cable connected VOIP telephone provided in the cottage.  There is also an open unencrypted Visitor WiFi service which I've set to 6/0.2 mbps for casual visitors. The cloud network management allows me to remotely rebalance the WiFi at a moment's notice.

As part of the routine turn-around process for new guests at the cottage, I reset the access password for the Guest WiFi. We leave a note of the new password for incoming guests. This limits the number of people who can access the faster WiFi service. We could run a voucher system, built into the Ubiquiti system, to control access but it is an over complication. The access point is set so that guests and visitors devices cannot directly interact across the WiFi LAN.

The Broadband upgrade was a simple process. Plusnet sent me a new router via ParcelForce to our home. I took this unit to the cottage and plugged it in to the old ADSL service. It worked without problem. Plusnet requested BT OpenReach to switch to the FTTC service. That is what happened yesterday, unattended, with a down time of a couple of minutes.  When I visited the cottage I altered the settings on the PlusNet Router to turn off their standard WiFi delivery, choosing instead to delivering WiFi via my Ubiquiti Access Point. which is connected via Power over Ethernet (POE) network cable directly to the PlusNet router. The faster Internet service increases our costs by approximately £5 (GBP) per month, but the improved network performance for our guests is noticeable.

Last night I used the UniFi cloud based network management tool to remotely upgrade the resident software on the Ubiquiti Access Point in the cottage. It just takes a couple of mouse clicks from my desktop PC at home and only leads to a few seconds of service outage. Timing this process carefully avoids any disruption to our guests. 

Managing the Network in Holiday Cottage

Our holiday cottage is in the middle of a short Victorian terrace row of houses. It is located in the town of Wirksworth, an old lead and limestone mining town. Originally it had two bedrooms, with no bathroom in the building. The toilet was in an outhouse and the occupants would bath in a tin bath in the kitchen. We've since converted one of the bedrooms into a bathroom.  

One other feature demanded by our guests in the cottage is a good Broadband Internet connection. It is generally one of the first questions we're asked when guests arrive: "What's the WiFi password?" Indeed we've had some guests who spend most of their stay on the settee in the cottage playing network computer games. We installed a business quality ADSL Broadband service with a WiFi service in the house delivered from the ISP Router. Usage is unlimited and the average top speed is 18 mbps download and 1mbps upload. The business service option costs more, but gives me a better service level in the event of faults.

One of the adjoining houses does not have their own internet connection and a limited income, so as a courtesy, a few months ago we allowed them to hook into our WiFi service free of charge. In general this does not generate any additional costs to us, but potentially reduces slightly the WiFi capacity available to our paying guests.

As a general upgrade I've recently signed up to a Plusnet partial fibre "SuperFast" broadband service (FTTC / VDSL). This has become available over the past couple of years. At our location this should give an Internet speed of 75 mbps download and a much faster upload (20 mbps) to our guests. However it does give rise to another potential issue. I don't want our neighbours to gain access to the faster service. To control this external access I've turned off the ISP WiFi on their router and installed a Ubiquiti UAP-AC-Lite  network access point to provide WiFi in the cottage. It is powered by Power Over Ethernet (POE) so needs only a single network cable from the ISP Router to the Ubiquiti access point unit on the wall. This POE method simplifies the cabling for the new unit.

The Ubiquiti device allows you to have up to four WiFi services simultaneously. You can also monitor them remotely and changing the settings on-the-fly without disturbing the holiday cottage guests. 

• I've setup one owner's WiFi band which is password protected and gives unrestricted capacity. 
• A second high speed WiFi band is dedicated for paying guests, and this is protected by a different password. 
• Finally there is a third guest band of WiFi which is open, not protected by password, available for visitors and neighbours. 

This third band is set with usage limits so that paying guests on the main band are not impacted by external usage.  Passwords can be changed remotely (UniFi Cloud service) by me at the start of each new rental via an Internet web page. This is the same type of WiFi system as the ones used in Premier Inn Hotels, except we don't charge our guests extra for the fast service.

The access point comes pre-configured from the supplier. It really is just a plug in and go device. If you want to monitor or alter the configuration it can be done from any web browser. It does help to have some knowledge of network technology if you are planning to tinker. The Ubiquiti devices are good at "mesh" networking if you need to deploy multiple access points, without running network cables, to ensure coverage of your property, but in most cases one unit will service a whole house.