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| Thread ID: 43283 | 2004-03-09 11:06:00 | Starting an Internet Cafe | hamstar (4) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 221374 | 2004-03-09 11:06:00 | I dunno if this has been done before or recently but can anyone tell me the basics of starting an internet cafe. so far I have decided that I will have eight machines, but I am stuck on what kind of Internet Plan to get. There won't be any filesharing that will take large chunks out of my limit, but with general internet usage and games what kind of cap should I be looking at? 1GB? 3GB? 10GB? And I have kind of decided on Quicksilver internet but if anyone has any other suggestions I would be glad to hear them. Quicksilver plans are as follows: Jetstream SURF 1GB limit @ 256kbs - $60 (5c/mb) Jetstream SURF 3GB " " " - $70 (5c/mb) Jetstream SURF 10GB " " " - $90 (throttling) Jetstream Home 1GB limit @ fullspeed (watever that means) - $90 (20c p/mb) Also do I get pinged if I'm on the home account when it's kind of a business? Then it says 4. Jetstream (256k and fullspeed) - Important Information As Jetstream excess traffic charges appear on your Telecom phonebill, it is important that you check your usage regularly throughout the month on Telecom's website Does this mean I'm charged for national as well? Also any pricing suggestions will be welcome. Oh one other thing. How do I go about getting volume licencing for things such as win2k, nortons 2003, battlefield 1942, counterstrike, zonealarm, unreal tournaments, call of duty etc etc... who do you contact for that sort of stuff? |
hamstar (4) | ||
| 221375 | 2004-03-09 11:20:00 | I take it she would be running from a non-residential address? Thus it would not be a residential phoneline. Thus it would be a commerial phone line. Thus you pay business rates. And they are huge. Cant see how they justify it against the home rates. I done the sums for an internet cafe,the outlay is big,the overheads are large,and need of constant customers is 100 percent. Granted it must be able to be done as theres a boatload of them,but my sums certainly didn't make it look like a worthwhile venture. |
metla (154) | ||
| 221376 | 2004-03-09 11:28:00 | For Internet: Give Orcon a ring..... You're looking at a LOT more than that per month.... That's just a joke.. We pay about $550... If we switch providers we could save a bit more, but that's up to management, not myself. We do about 3.5 Gigs, and that's without Games. e.g. surfing, emails and that's about it. We have 7 PC's. IIRC, Gamesman do volume liscencing. Have a google around.... I wouldnt bother with Zone-Alarm on each PC. We keep pretty close tabs on everything that's on our PC's, and dont have any firewall, rather just the router. There's the WinXP firewall I s'pose.. Get a Linux smoothwall box, or IPCop etc and route through that. Win2K? Im pretty sure it costs a lil more than XP.... There's precious little performance boost, if any, so it may pay to stick to that, or better still, get Win98 second hand :-) AVG is great for corporate use also :-) Hope this helps Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 221377 | 2004-03-09 11:47:00 | > Cant see how they justify it against the home rates. Yeah but, will I get done for it? ]:) > And they are huge. Yep, I saw. And I was scared. ;-) > $550 Ouch! > 3.5 Gigs without Games... Wow, thats a lot. I better take the 10gb plan then eh? > I wouldnt bother with Zone-Alarm on each PC. Oh, yeah I wasn't gonna write that... i was just gonna install it on the gateway pc, or just use the naturally ocuring one on the router... > Win2K? Im pretty sure it costs a lil more than XP Yeah. bout $100 more (wholesale) but I prefer not to spill the blood of the innocent :^O (y'know, xp is the antichrist ;) :-P) > or better still, get Win98 second hand Yeah, good ol' win98! Oh, and what do you charge your users? |
hamstar (4) | ||
| 221378 | 2004-03-09 11:50:00 | I would look more at getting 2000 Pro or Xp Pro rather than older OS's. Much easier to configure for advanced settings like group policies and NTFS permissions. You perhaps don't want people deleting windows. Although when I go to a internet-cafe I like to have unrestricted access on it. Things like changing screen resolution so I don't go blind. Some of them don't even have a java VM running so I can't access my webmail (hushmail). So I like to install it for them :p Plus theres the other stuff I like to install like trojans and proxies so I can route my P2P traffic through their network... bla bla bla you don't need to know all this ;) | PoWa (203) | ||
| 221379 | 2004-03-09 12:02:00 | We use WinGuard Basic to protect our PC's from most things.. And I asked a PF1 user to compile an old program I helped develop which essentially killed any open programs that fit a specific value. 10 gigs... Depends how much gaming you're going to do. Ring Orcon and have a talk to them. It might pay to look into getting a frame-relay of some sort.. who knows. There's tons of options, they should be able to put you on the right path. We charge $4 per hour ($1 for 15 mins), however many Cafe's in Auckland are now charging: $2 = 30 Mins $3 = 60 mins It varies between Cafe. When we started out two years ago we charged $8 per hour! Apps like Spybot S&D are a Must.... Openoffice saves on Office Liscenes.... DesktopX from Stardock.com might be worth looking into also. And setup a local PC to be a file/game server. Running a local server is good for LANs ;-) Use something like Daemon Tools should you need to mount CD Images for games that want the CD in the drive to play, or find no-cd fixes. We use Alcohol 120% on one PC we use for copying CD's (Legitimately of course). You'll want the latest of all the software like MSN, Yahoo, ICQ Lite, Cheating Death, Internet Explorer..... And keep it up-to-date. Nothing's worse than sitting down at a PC at a Cafe and finding MSN or ICQ Lite _must_ be updated before you can sign in again. Mostly, I'd recommend WinGuard Basic, and/or DesktopX. We use WinGuard Basic, and if I wasnt pushing to get a few Linux PC's, I'd be pushing for management to buy DesktopX. WinGuard Basic is shareware..... Cheers Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 221380 | 2004-03-09 12:03:00 | LOL... I just went and searched google for a game distributor called IIRC... Then I saw what it stood for... haha, thats funny.... LOL... p.s. IIRC=if i recall correctly.... |
hamstar (4) | ||
| 221381 | 2004-03-09 12:05:00 | > Yeah but, will I get done for it? Its not a question of will you get done for it,,They know the second you give them the address whether its a commercial or residential line and will charge accordingly. Unless you plan to run this out of a house then it will be classified as a commercial line. While we are at it,add up your projected costs,hardware,internet feed,rent,power,insurence,security,software,wages, maitence,advertising,signage,..... Then add a third and you may be close to start up figures. My figures for start up on my most recent adventure were nailed right down to the last dollar,and were blown all out of whack within 15 minutes of getting the keys to the premisis,.....I did expect it however,just not what form it would take.... Anyway,back to the net cafe,Add up your start up costs,then work out your weekly outgoings,Including tax,wages and all the rest,then see how many hours of use each computer would need to have in order to pay all the weekly costs plus recoup the startup fee. |
metla (154) | ||
| 221382 | 2004-03-09 12:11:00 | If you're in Auck's, then I'd be happy to have you into the shop some time and show you around a few of the things we offer, and pitfalls to watch out for. Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 221383 | 2004-03-09 12:17:00 | Man, theres some good ideas there (including PoWa's ;)) >We charge $4 per hour ($1 for 15 mins), however many Cafe's in >Auckland are now charging: >$2 = 30 Mins >$3 = 60 mins Hey, thats sounds fair. >Apps like Spybot S&D are a Must.... Openoffice saves on Office Liscenes.... DesktopX from Stardock.com might be worth looking into also. Yep of course. I actually forgot about OOo. But why DX? To control access to stuff? >setup a local PC to be a file/game server. Running a local server is good for LANs Man! Thats a great idea! Doing that! Run LAN's. That'll pull in a bit of cash! >Use something like Daemon Tools should you need to mount CD Images for games Ahh... thats sensible. By the way, what size do you think is a good size for the hard drives? Man, glad I did this... I would've lost money had I not! I'm going to google wingaurd..... |
hamstar (4) | ||
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