Questions & Answers
No. Internet access is provided for free at every maxspot® hotspot.
You just need to sign up (once) in order to get an user account in the
maxspot® community.
Using this account you can log into the system to gain free access to the Internet at every
maxspot® hotspot world-wide.
In order to register a new account in advance or to change personal settings on an existing account it is possible to sign up and to log in through the off-site portal site. As a member of the maxspot® community you can access the portal site from anywhere on the net, not just from locations with a maxspot® hotspot.
Choose between email-based or SMS-based registration (if the hotspot provides SMS-based registration). If the hotspot does not provide SMS-based registration, you can sign up only using email-based registration.
Email-based registration:
- Create an account: Pick a username, enter your mail address (and optionally your mobile phone number), then choose a password.
- Activate the account: We will send you an activation link by email, which you must click on to complete the registration. Please note: If you register at a hotspot, you will be granted 15 minutes of Internet access to check your email and click on the activation link. If your new account is not activated during this 15 minutes, access to the Internet will be denied again.
SMS-based registration:
- Create an account: Pick a username, enter your mobile phone number (and optionally your mail address), then choose a password.
- Activate the account: We will send you a SMS with an activation code, which you must enter in the form to complete the registration.
That's all! From now on you can login into any maxspot® hotspot using your personal account. Pretty easy, isn't it?
We use your mail address and your phone number only for the validation of your registration to ensure that it's really you who registers. Per your request we also send you a password change request, which lets you change your password in case you should forget it.
Note that on hotspots it usually does not make sense to send a password change request by email if you can't access your mailbox by any other means. That's why you can specify your mobile phone number even if using email-based registration. If you forget your password, we can send it via SMS this time. If, however, you also have lost your mobile phone, all bets are off :-)
If you are concerned about privacy, please be assured: We will neither send you any unsolicited email nor disclose your mail address or phone number to any third party (except when forced to do so by a German judge). Also see our privacy policy.
Other users and the owner of this hotspot will only see your nickname (if you choose to be visible in your profile), but they will neither see your mail address nor your phone number.
For email-based activation the mail address needs to be valid. Sometimes our email ends up in the SPAM folder. Please be sure to check your SPAM folder. If you need us to resend the activation code, please click here.
For SMS-based activation your mobile phone number must be valid and the phone must be able to receive SMS sent via German mobile network providers. Please allow some time for processing the request at the network provider's SMS message center. If you mis-typed the phone number, please sign up again using another username and your correct phone number.
The activation link is valid for two days. If it expired already just sign up again. If you need us to resend the activation code, please click here.
This means that either the hotspot time or traffic limits have been exceeded or that you have been denied access by the hotspot owner or the system for some reason. Note: On hotspots with a traffic limit there might be a per-user limit and a total limit, so it can happen that you are denied access while other users still can use the hotspot until they reach their per-user limit.
Traffic counters for hotspots are reset once per day at midnight and traffic counters for users expire 24 hours after the limit was exceeded. If you need more information about this hotspot's traffic limits or usage policy, please contact the owner of this hotspot.
Please do not contact maxspot®, since we can't do anything on time or traffic limits, which are solely based on the hotspot owner's usage policy.
No. maxspot® hotspots provide a full, uncensored Internet access.
However, the hotspot owner can reduce the available bandwidth for file-transfer services in order to reserve bandwidth for time-critical applications such as Internet telephony or streaming media or block services such as P2P completely. Furthermore, most hotspot owners deny access to their local network infrastructure.
In case of T-Online as the access point's Internet provider this can sometimes affect the POP mail services of T-Online in general. If this is the case, please use the web interface to your T-Online mailbox rather than your native mailer program.
In the past, some hotspot owners did even block popular sites for reasons not known to us.
If you need more information about a hotspot's blocking policy, please ask the hotspot owner directly.
You not only can use virtual private network (VPN) connections with our hotspots, you actually should use VPN or SSL-encrypted connections when exchanging private data. VPN products are available through our partners and third party companies. Please note that we do not support proprietary VPN products based on L2TP such as Microsoft VPN. We strongly suggest that you get a free alternative such as OpenVPN, which is available for Windows, MacOS and UNIX/Linux systems.
The hotspot checks whether your notebook is still alive by sending it short data packets ("pings") at a regular interval. If your notebook does not respond for 15 minutes you will be logged out automatically. If you use a personal firewall and have denied incoming ICMP traffic, your notebook does not respond to those heartbeat messages from the hotspot, so it assumes that you have left the location and terminates your session.
The solution is to turn off your personal firewall. You do not need such a firewall, since the hotspot protects your system already.
It depends whether you are using a notebook on the wireless network or a stationary PC connected to the local network of a hotspot over an ethernet cable:
- On the wireless network the hotspot checks whether your notebook is still alive by sending it short data packets at a regular interval. If your notebook does not respond for 15 minutes you will be logged out automatically. So you just need to close the notebook's cover or put it into sleep mode in order to end a session.
- On stationary computers connected to the hotspot's local network over an ethernet cable you must log out through the portal page! If the URL of the portal page isn't present in your browser anymore, type: into your browser's address field to end the session. Or just bookmark this »Logout« link.
There are two methods:
- Simply stop using your account. After six months of inactivity it will be deleted automatically.
- Log into your account and delete it using the Delete account page (this will invalidate your session and you will be logged out immediately). Your account remains in deletion period for a few days until it is physically deleted from our database. During this deletion period the username, mail address or phone number can't be used anymore neither for login nor for a new registration. If you decide to sign up again later under the same username, you can do so anytime once the old account has been physically deleted.
Log into your account and check the box at »account is permanent« on the Change profile page. This will preserve your account over any period of inactivity. Of course you can still delete your account on the Change profile page if you choose to do so.
For an overview of hotspot locations in your area, please see the hotspots map.