A café with an espresso machine and a roadside coffee stall serve the same needs, a seat, a drink, and lately Wi-Fi, with very different budgets. This guide is for the small-budget side: food stalls, street cafés, angkringan, and tent eateries that want to answer "is there Wi-Fi?" with "yes" without changing how they trade.

The budget: one internet plan and the router it comes with

For 5–15 customers browsing social media and watching short videos, the cheapest home plan, usually 10–20 Mbps, is enough. The router the provider supplies is enough too; no need to buy a new one. What gets complained about is usually not speed but reach: a tent stall or front terrace far from the router. Move the router towards where customers sit, as high as possible, and that's usually solved. See the router placement guide.

If the location has no cabled service, a roadside angkringan, a stall in an area without fibre, the option is a 4G router with a data SIM. Pick a large data plan; 15 customers watching video can use several gigabytes in an evening.

Separate customers from QRIS and the owner's phone

This is the most important part, and it's free. Provider-supplied routers almost always have a Guest Network feature. Turn it on, name it something like "Bu Sri's Coffee", and let customers use that. The owner's phone that receives QRIS notifications and opens mobile banking stays on the main network. That way no customer shares a network with the phone holding the stall's money. Steps are in the guide to separating a guest network; why it matters for mobile banking is in the guide to mobile banking security on Wi-Fi.

Comfortable, but not for hours

The classic coffee stall problem: one customer orders one coffee then sits for five hours because of the Wi-Fi. A few ways to manage it, from simplest:

  • Daily password on the receipt. Change the password each morning and write it on the receipt or a small board by the till. Those who order know it. The cheapest and most widely used method.
  • Time limit per device. Some supplied routers have a duration setting for the guest network, say two hours, after which the device must reconnect. A customer who orders again gets the password again.
  • Speed limit. 2–3 Mbps per device is enough for social media and short videos but uncomfortable for downloading films, which is the point. How to in the guide to limiting Wi-Fi speed.
  • Vouchers. For a busy stall open late, Wi-Fi vouchers handed out per order are the next step. Covered in the guide to making Wi-Fi vouchers. This needs a router beyond the supplied one, so leave it until the stall actually needs it.

Covering the monthly cost

Stall Wi-Fi costs about the price of 20–40 cups of coffee a month. It pays for itself if it adds a few regulars, and the simplest way is making sure people know it exists: on the banner, on the menu board, and in the Google Maps listing. A coffee stall with Wi-Fi that students and ride-hailing drivers look for is a stall that's busy during the quiet hours. A fuller calculation is in the guide to guest Wi-Fi costs for businesses.

A little about the rules

A stall providing Wi-Fi is an access provider, however small. A daily-changed password and a separate guest network already meet reasonable care at this scale. An overview of responsibilities is in the guide to Wi-Fi owner responsibilities, and if you later use a login page and collect customer numbers, see the rules on collecting customer data.

The cheapest internet plan, its router moved towards the customers, guest network on so QRIS and the owner's phone stay separate, password changed daily and written on the receipt. That's stall Wi-Fi that works well. Vouchers and a login page come later, once the stall is busy because of it.