A practical guide for anyone who wants to sell WiFi - in an estate, a market, a hostel, a campus or a town: the site, the internet line, the equipment, how to price vouchers, the billing software and the rules to check first.
You buy one fast internet line, put access points where people are, and sell access in small pieces - an hour, a day, a week, or a data bundle - usually as printed vouchers sold by you or by agents. The margin comes from sharing one line fairly among many paying users, which is why the two things that make or break the business are where you put it and the software that controls who gets on and for how long.
This model is everywhere: "WiFi mtaani" in Kenya and Tanzania, estate hotspots in Nigeria and Ghana, township WiFi in South Africa, WiFi card networks in Yemen and Egypt, and public WiFi under PM-WANI in India.
Dense places where people stay for a while and mobile data is expensive or weak: residential estates and hostels, markets and bus parks, campuses, cafés and barber shops. Walk the area and count the phones.
Fibre or fixed wireless with a stable speed, from a licensed provider that allows resale or shared use. A second line, even a smaller one, with automatic failover protects your income when the first one drops.
A router that can run a hotspot - MikroTik RouterOS is the usual choice - and outdoor or indoor access points to cover the area: MikroTik, TP-Link Omada or Ubiquiti UniFi. Add a UPS or battery: power cuts are the most common cause of lost sales.
Time vouchers (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month), data bundles, or both, each with a speed cap so one user cannot take the whole line. Price below what the same data costs on mobile, and keep the cheapest voucher small enough to impulse-buy.
Software that generates vouchers in batches, enforces their time, data and speed limits, shows sales per agent and per site, and records who used what. This is what turns a router into a business.
Shops and kiosks near your access points sell printed vouchers for cash or mobile money and keep a commission. Give each agent their own voucher batch so you can see who sold what.
Rules on reselling internet access, registering users and keeping logs differ by country. Ask your regulator or a local lawyer before you launch. In India, the PM-WANI framework lets any business become a public WiFi operator (PDO) without a licence, under a registered aggregator such as iberry - see PM-WANI.
MikroTik hEX, RB4011 or RB5009 class, sized to the number of users at peak.
Outdoor sector or omni access points for open areas, indoor ones for hostels and cafés. MikroTik, Omada or UniFi.
UPS or battery and inverter for the router and every access point.
Any printer for voucher sheets, or a small thermal printer at the counter.
Cloud hotspot billing so you have no server to keep running. See below.
One main line, one backup, with automatic failover.
iberry is the billing and control side, run from the cloud and managed for you: batches of vouchers with their own time, data and speed limits, a branded login page, sales and usage per site, automatic failover between two lines, and a record of every session. It runs on MikroTik, TP-Link Omada and Ubiquiti UniFi, in any country. There is no billing server to buy, power or patch.
What it does not do today: take mobile-money or card payment on the login page itself. Agents selling printed vouchers for cash or mobile money is how most hotspot businesses sell anyway. See hotspot billing for Africa and hotspot billing software.
It depends on the area you cover: one router, a handful of access points, power backup and an internet line for a small site, more access points and a faster line for an estate or market. The internet line is usually the largest running cost. Get quotes for the line first - it decides your price per user.
A hotspot router (MikroTik is the most common), access points (MikroTik, TP-Link Omada or Ubiquiti UniFi), power backup, an internet line - ideally two - and billing software to sell vouchers and control usage.
It depends on the country. Some regulators require a licence or registration to resell internet access; others allow it under the provider's terms. Check with your regulator before you start. In India, PM-WANI lets a business operate public WiFi as a PDO without a licence, under a registered aggregator.
Generate them in batches, each with a time or data allowance and a speed cap, print them, and sell them yourself or through agents. Users connect to your WiFi, enter the voucher code on the login page and are online until it runs out.
Yes, in any country. Your router and access points connect to the iberry cloud, where vouchers, limits, sales and records are managed. A local technician installs the hardware; we set up and manage the rest. Support is in English.
Tell us the country, the area you want to cover and the internet line you can get. We will tell you what the setup looks like. Published plans in India start at ₹30,000 one-time with ₹15,000 yearly maintenance; outside India every project is quoted on its own, because the hardware is usually bought locally.
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