Chances are you have unknowingly used a captive portal many times. This is a customised login page on corporate networks that guest users must pass through before they can connect to the Wi-Fi network. Airports, bars and hotels are the most common places where this feature is used. But really any business can benefit from the advantages that a captive portal provides. It’s an elegant dual solution for advanced security and marketing. We tell you everything you need to know about the captive portal.
What is a captive portal?
It is software that monitors the traffic of a Wi-Fi hotspot, forcing users connecting to that network to go through a landing page. In this landing page, they are informed of the steps they must follow to connect to that Wi-Fi network in order to access the Internet. It is typically used in open wireless networks.
What the captive portal does is to intercept all HTTP and/or HTTPS traffic and redirect all requests to the establishment’s website. It can also:
- Manage the bandwidth to be offered to customers.
- Control when users’ sessions have to expire.
- Log the resources visited by users.
- Personalise that page and use it as a marketing tool to publicise your promotions and services.
When to use it?
If you offer free Wi-Fi to your customers, it is important that you have a captive portal installed in your Wi-Fi hotspot. It is not advisable to give out your Wi-Fi password for security reasons. If you give out your Wi-Fi password, you don’t know who is connected. You will only know the MAC address of the devices and that does not give you any clues about their owners.
To protect yourself, use a captive portal, so you can identify everyone who connects to your Wi-Fi. This way, if any of these people misuse your network, you will be able to prove to the police who was connected at the time of a reportable event from your IP.
Normally, when the main activity of your business is not to offer telecommunication services, but you want to offer free Wi-Fi to your customers, you should use a captive portal. In addition, users will accept the terms of use of your Wi-Fi network before connecting. And you will be able to send them commercial notifications in compliance with the GDPR or European data protection law.
Our Magallanes® platform
Our captive portal has become one of the longest-lived and most powerful on the market. Why is that? Since we launched the Magallanes® platform in 2005, we at Esferize have not stopped innovating. Each of these 16 years we have implemented improvements in Magallanes® and it has been constantly evolving to adapt completely to your business and your customers. In addition, our captive portal offers a multitude of alternative ways of accessing the Internet, which can be combined at will.
Our Magallanes® solution for NH Hotels
