How would YOU setup an Internet Cafe today?

[jivan]

A friend has asked me to set up an internet cafe. I've helped with the creation of a couple of places but have always felt there must be a better way.

The combined knowledge and experience of this forums contributors should be able to help me setup the perfect internet cafe on a shoestring.

These are the requirements -
They want about 10 stations
No gaming just open source software running on Windows XP such as OpenOffice
Billing must be strictly & easily controllable to avoid staff from being able to cheat the system.
VoIP Call Phones must have bandwidth priority.

Here are just a few question that jump to mind...
Can more than one station be created on one computer?
Can some sort of server be used to help reduce bandwidth costs as many people visit the same sites?
Can bandwidth be shaped to ensure VoIP calls are clear and web pages have priority over media such video streaming.

Thanks

 

[rorz0r]

1. Yes, it's possible they could all run off 1 server. Not sure if it would be cost effective. Look in to "thin clients".
2. Yes, a proxy server (running software like squid).
3. Yes.

I'd look into a product like smoothwall for running on the router pc/proxy server. It should be able to do "accounting" (keeping track of usage etc) as well.

 

[froot]

You get extensions for IPCop that allows you to run a whole internet cafe system from it.
With this you can do the following:
1. Billing
2. Port prioritisation (shaping) and port blocking
3. Http caching (so you don't have to download the same item twice)
4. Firewall and other internal security measures