Faster, family-safe WiFi for cafés, with the till kept safe behind it
Customers stay for an hour with a laptop, or ten minutes with a pushchair, and both expect the WiFi to work. Shield strips ads and trackers so pages load faster on a single broadband line, and keeps the network family-safe. Your till, card reader and the owner's laptop run on threat-first rules. You change one router setting, with no hardware to install.
- Staff and head officeThreat defense firstOffice LAN and staff WiFi, by directory group
- Guest WiFiStrict, family-safeVisitors and customers, nothing to installGuest network tiersFree WiFiAd blocking on, streaming limited at busy timesPaid WiFiIts own rules, separate from the free tier
- IoT and branchesLocked downTills, cameras and sensors behind a relay
Schedule, per site
What is at stake
One broadband line doing three jobs
Laptops camped all day
Remote workers and students stay for hours, and their streaming and ad-heavy pages crowd out the customer who wants the menu.The till on the same router
In most cafés the till, card reader and music system share a router with customers, so each needs its own policy.No IT team
The owner or a shift manager runs the WiFi, so the protection has to work without anyone watching a dashboard.
How Shield fits
Customers, staff and the till, each on its own rules
- Customer WiFiFamily-safe categories, Safe Search and ad blocking, with file sharing apps blocked.
- Till and card readerThreat-first rules, with newly registered domains, phishing and malware blocked at the lookup.
- Staff phonesThreat defense first, with social media blocked during opening hours if you choose.
- Owner's laptopPhishing, ransomware and newly registered domains blocked while it is on the café network, with nothing to install.
See everything Shield stopsHospitality WiFi on Purple Access
Guest WiFi policy
- Adult contentBlocked
- GamblingBlocked
- Safe Search on Google, Bing and YouTubeEnforced
- Streaming at busy timesLimited
Allow list
bookings.examplemenu.exampleBlock list
rival-venue.exampleProof
More from a single broadband line
- 500%
- faster page loads, once ads and trackers are stripped out
- 44%
- less data used, by Purple's own measurements
- 20-40%
- less web traffic across the network, by Purple's own measurements
- Friendly WiFistandard met by Shield's filtering for family-safe public WiFi
FAQ
Questions we hear from teams like yours
Do I need to buy any equipment?
No. Shield is a setting on the router your broadband provider gave you, or on your firewall or DHCP. There is no appliance to buy and nothing for customers to install. You can try it free for 30 days before you decide.
Will laptop users notice a difference?
Mostly in speed. Shield strips ads and trackers before they load, and Purple's own measurements show page loads up to 500% faster and 20 to 40% less web traffic. Remote workers keep their email, video calls and cloud tools.
Can customers get round it with a VPN?
You can block VPN and proxy apps in one click. Some cafés leave them allowed so remote workers can reach their office, and rely on family-safe filtering for everyone else. The choice sits with you, per network.
Does it help with PCI DSS for my card reader?
It helps you meet PCI DSS rather than making you compliant. Your till and card reader get their own threat-first policy, Shield blocks phishing and malware lookups, and the reports give you evidence of what was stopped. Your card provider's own requirements still apply.
I run three cafés. Can each have different rules?
Yes. Each site, SSID or VLAN takes its own policy, and rules can change by time of day. A café next to a school can run stricter filtering at 3:30pm than a branch in the city, all from one dashboard.
Other industries
Hotels
Family-safe guest WiFi in each room, with the front desk and building systems on threat-first rules.Restaurants
Family-safe diner WiFi, with pay-at-table terminals and ordering tablets on threat-first rules.Quick-service restaurants
Family-safe customer WiFi, with kitchen screens, kiosks and drive-thru tablets on threat-first rules.
Decide what your network reaches, free for 30 days
Tell us which networks and sites you run and who is on them. We map a policy to each one: staff, guests, students, residents and IoT. Then point one network at Shield and see what it stops for 30 days, before you pay anything. Running change control? We plan a pilot on one site with your team instead. No hardware to install.
- We map your networksA Purple expert maps your networks, your venues and the people on each, and answers your questions on bypass, outages, data handling and integrations.
- You get a policy for each oneStaff, guests, students, residents, IoT and paid tiers, each with the policy it needs.
- You prove it, then get your tailored quote30 days free on one network, or a pilot on one site planned with your team, then Shield priced standalone or as an add-on to your Access plan.
Your policy map
Tell us your networks. We map a policy to each one.
A Purple expert comes back with a policy for every network and group you run, from the team that has run content filtering since 2012 and runs WiFi for 80,000+ venues in 90 countries.