Laura Carvajal:
An Architecture for the Integration of Wireless Internet Services,
summary, report, June 2004.

Abstract:
A hotspot is a location where users can connect wirelessly to the internet. It consists of an access point, an access point controller application and a radius server to handle authentication. With this basic set-up anyone can provide users with wireless internet access.

However, this service is currently very limited. This project aims at allowing hotspot owners to provide many more services. Its main goal is to determine the viability of a system architecture capable of allowing authentication and accounting with a database, providing management features via a web server application, integrating SMS functionalities and supporting pre-paid as well as post-paid users. The architecture to be designed should be flexible enough to integrate new services in the future. It should also be scalable to allow parts of the prototype produced in this work to be later used in a commercial product.

The final architecture design soundly integrates all the hotspot components together with the web server application and the database, providing hotspot owners with new, innovative services. It is a design that works in a prototype environment but load analyses indicate that the prototype can become a larger commercial product after some minor modifications.