How to improve hotel WiFi with bandwidth control per client

by Marketing Team | Jun 15, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, Public Hotspots

How to improve hotel WiFi with bandwidth control per client

Hotels should provide reliable Internet bandwidth to improve the overall guest WiFi experience. Tanaza allows increasing hotel WiFi network performance thanks to its newly-released Bandwidth Control per Client feature.

According to a recent survey carried out by Forbes, almost 50% of hotel guests consider free WiFi a top priority. Leisure travellers expect to find fast guest Internet access to browse the web, to stay in contact with their friends and family on Whatsapp and social media, to upload pictures of their vacation on Instagram and Facebook, to stream music and video content on Youtube and Netflix, etc. At the same time, business tourists expect reliable WiFi services to share files on Google Drive, perform video conference calls (VoIP and Whatsapp calls and real-time communication on Skype), access their email accounts, etc. As guest satisfaction is key to improve guest loyalty and hotel bookings, it is crucial to allocate hotel bandwidth properly.

In general, bandwidth consumption depends on a range of factors, mainly the environment of the hospitality venue, the number of concurrent users being connected to the hotel WiFi network and the type of Internet applications guests are using – from low bandwidth apps, i.e. web surfing and instant messaging, to bandwidth-hungry apps, i.e. video calls and video streaming. Given the increasing amount of WiFi-enabled devices per user, together with the proliferation of different internet applications, it is difficult to provide a smooth WiFi experience to all hotel guests at the same time. Tanaza helps hoteliers overcome this problem.

Tanaza has just released its innovative Bandwidth Control per Client feature, which allows hotel network administrators to set a per-user guest WiFi bandwidth limit.

Tanaza allows to limit bandwidth both per SSID and per user, at the same time. For instance, if the hotel IT manager has a total bandwidth of 25Mbps available, he might decide to allocate 20Mbps for guest WiFi on an SSID and the remaining 5Mbps for the hotel staff on a separated SSID. At the same time, considering the 20Mbps of bandwidth available for guest WiFi, he can decide to provide each hotel guest with 300Kbps.

With this new bandwidth control tool, network admins can now enable bandwidth upload and download limitations per user, at the SSID level. This means that all guests being simultaneously connected to the hotel network benefit from the same WiFi performance.

A unique aspect of Tanaza’s per-client bandwidth control feature is its ability to avoid “bandwidth hog”, the term used to identify users consuming more bandwidth than other concurrent users on the same WiFi network. In fact, Tanaza’s Bandwidth Control per Client feature comes with a “boost” function, which allows hotel guests to exceed the bandwidth limit for a few seconds when they use a WiFi service. For instance, let’s suppose that the hotel network admin configures an SSID for guest WiFi with a bandwidth limit of 3Mbps. When a hotel guest performs an online activity, i.e. streaming a video on Netflix, he will be temporarily allowed to use bandwidth over that limit. At the same time, for a few seconds, he will consume more bandwidth than other concurrent guests.

Thanks to Tanaza’s Bandwidth Control per Client capability, all hotel guests connected to the same SSID will benefit from the same fast and reliable WiFi experience, independently from their Internet usage. By successfully meeting guest expectations regarding WiFi performance, hoteliers can enhance guest loyalty and attract more visitors.

>> Do you want to estimate your hotel network bandwidth need? Try our free Access Point Selector!

Tanaza for Wifi assurance and centralized consolidated management of wireless networks

by Marketing Team | May 4, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, Networking

Tanaza for Wifi assurance and centralized consolidated management of wireless networks

Tanaza is a platform allowing you to ensure your wireless equipment is working correctly at any point in time. Tanaza helps you maintain WIFI Assurance and identify mistakes in your configuration, which might result in disconnections, degraded performance, and WLAN outages.

Centralization of wireless networks management

Thanks to Tanaza, managing wireless networks and ensuring high-quality services to customers is a child’s play. No more fragmented wireless assurance tools: network administrators will be able to consolidate their networking infrastructure monitoring, using one single centralised dashboard, and receive automated alerts in case of problems.

BYOD

Digital enterprises and companies are increasingly allowing employees to use their personal devices at work, but BYOD – Bring your own device – policies are not easy to implement, and devices can quickly get out of control. With its couponing feature, Tanaza allows creating temporary and permanent credentials for internet access, so that each employee has their own password to access the network.

For example, in the picture below, you see three types of coupons created:

the green wifi voucher, valid for 1 year for up to three devices, will be given to employees
the purple wifi voucher, valid for 30 days for up to three devices, will be given to temporary workers/freelancers/consultants
the red wifi voucher, valid for 1 day, will be given to guests

Furthermore, the network administrator can easily invalidate existing coupons to deny further access to unwanted clients. When a voucher is deactivated, access to the internet will be automatically prohibited to any device using that voucher to connect.

Security, Krack and IoT

In enterprises environments, you will probably have many users and devices connecting to your wireless networks: employees, guests, but also printers, shared laptops, smart TVs, etc.

Thanks to Tanaza, you can easily isolate WLAN clients between each other and also isolate them from LAN resources. For example, guests should not be able to see the printers in the building in the network resources.

Given that employees use critical applications and business services and companies implement policies for work in mobility, security is a primary concern for all network administrators. Tanaza has created a secure cloud infrastructure that separates instances of each customer and isolates the access points’ management traffic and connection to the cloud from the clients’ traffic, as well.

Tanaza is at the forefront in providing security updates for all its devices promptly. For example, the patch for the WPA2 breach known as “Krack” was released in less than 24 hours from the hack’s discovery, allowing all Tanaza Firwmare’s users to secure the wireless connection of all their clients connecting to the wireless LAN in no time.

In the case your enterprise uses wirelessly-connected devices, such as point-of-sale system (used in retail) and sensors (smart cities, hospitals, etc.), Tanaza makes your Wireless LAN secure and provides you with reliable management software. IoT initiatives launched by enterprises pose unprecedented security issues to wireless networks. Tanaza is creating tools to solve this problem, including the newly released Rogue Access Point detection system, which allows identifying devices broadcasting and SSID named as yours, trying to steal your clients’ data and in the worst cases, to sniff their traffic.

Tanaza allows you to detect and analyse these WiFi faults and problems.

Improving the network performance and avoiding interference

Network administrators need to deliver coverage and performance, ensuring to their users WIFI assurace, health and performance. Tanaza provides tools to improve your network performance, such as the automated channel selection avoiding interference. You can use Tanaza to scan beacons around your Access points and choose the channel accordingly. Also, you can let Tanaza do the job on your behalf and select automatically the channel with less interference any time the device reboots.

Reboots can be done manually through a command in the cloud interface, and they can also be scheduled so they happen during the night, without service outages for users and applications.

Tanaza’s intuitive monitoring tool also allows you to check in real-time the quality of the signal for each connected client so that you can identify coverage and interference problems within your network in no time.

Furthermore, this and other data is also available through APIs, so that you can build your own alerting system and troubleshoot the network before problems are noticed by other people. Tanaza allows you to be proactive in building a reliable and solid network, even if you’re using low-cost devices. For example, you might create your own web service which sends you push notifications on your phone in the case the MAC address of the CEO has bad signal, or when an access point has more than 20 people connected, when an access point has an excessive load, etc.

WiFi troubles won’t keep you up at night, as everything will be under control.

Unlimited scalability and reduced costs

With wirelessly-connected devices increasing at a rapid rate, and mobile devices becoming the most used ones to connect to the internet and work, WLAN is expected to transmit most of the internet traffic in the future.

The application layer, providing guest authentication, WiFi location-tracking services, and many other services, should run on reliable networking infrastructure. However, the costs of creating it are usually very high.

We understand that the increasing expectations of users conflict with the lack of budget and resources troubling network administrators. Users have very low tolerance for problems and performance issue, and solutions’ prices increase each year. Also, most solutions in the market lock you to a vendor’s brand, therefore preventing you from switching to another provider.

Tanaza provides a multi-vendor software that runs on top of low-cost to high-end access points, allowing any business, from SMBs to large enterprises, to benefit from a reliable networking infrastructure. Businesses using Tanaza reduce their CAPEX and are free to switch from one vendor to another, with no switching costs, when they need to. Furthermore, Tanaza’s management and monitoring platform work in the exact same way with all devices, stores the device configuration in the cloud for quick replacement of access points, is offered with a pay-as-you-go formula and is affordable for businesses of any size. Tanaza reduces OPEX and provides the flexibility you need in your fast-paced role.

Tanaza offers unlimited scalability in the number of access points and immediate provisioning and deployment. You will not need hardware controllers anymore, as the controlling layer will be in the cloud. Tanaza Cloud grows with your business and its features and compatibility list are continuously improving.

Start the 15-days free trial

Why you should schedule your SSID access

by Marketing Team | Apr 30, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management

Why you should schedule your SSID access

Tanaza features a captive portal that allows you to create up to 8 SSID by access points, a way for the network administrator to secure and separate accesses to the WiFi network. Indeed, each SSID should be set up according to the usage of the network.

For example, when deploying a WiFi network for a restaurant, the WiFi administrator might want to create different network access for the staff and the guests. To do so, the WiFi administrator can create a first SSID protected by a password for the staff, and another SSID for the guest with access through email authentication or social media. In this way, customers will access the SSID through a different door. However, a problem might occur when customers connect to the WiFi network within the closed hours of the restaurant, enjoying a free WiFi connection without any counterpart for the owner of the restaurant.

To solve this problem, we strongly encourage you to schedule your SSID access by setting hours of network’s availability.

Indeed, SSID time restriction allows you to deactivate your SSID when your shop closes so that nobody can access the internet through your Wi-fi network during the night for example.

The SSID availability is not currently featured by Tanaza but still, you can deactivate your SSID by going through your access points settings remotely.

Solution 1: enter to your cloud.tanaza.com account and click on the access point that you want to deactivate.
Click on “settings”, then “SSIDs”. Finally, switch the on/off button to turn off your access point.
Remember to activate it again when you want your SSID to be available.

Solution 2: another possibility for you is to deactivate the SSID by making him invisible.
Go on your SSID settings, click on “wireless security” and switch the button enable/disable to make your SSID invisible
Be careful, the SSID will be invisible only for new WiFi users, while WiFi users already registered will still access to your WiFi network if they are in the network area

Alternatively, this could be done by showing the SSID name on clients’ devices, while replacing the splash page with a message saying “WiFi guest access is available only between 9 AM and 6 PM at this location”.

In any cases, we strongly advise you to secure your WiFi guest access and to use a web content filtering to avoid any bad usage of your WiFi network.

Your opinion is valuable to us, so please let us know what you think about this feature idea.

Try Tanaza for free!

Related articles:

How many access points do you need for your WiFi hotspot

How many wireless devices can you connect to one WiFi router?

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/how-wifi-can-become-your-new-marketing-tool/

Next steps for Tanaza

by Sebastiano Bertani | Mar 27, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management

Next steps for Tanaza

How many wireless devices can you connect to one WiFi router

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on this blog.

During the last 2 years, Tanaza has seen a huge growth: in its customer base, in its network of resellers and white label partners, and in the overall number of deployments. It has been an extremely exciting time for us and I am very proud of who we are and what we do today.

Now, I’m posting on this blog again because I’d like to announce the roadmap for the next year as well as give you an idea of the direction that the company is taking.

Sebastiano Bertani, CEO

Our “zero-support-tickets” goal

What’s Tanaza’s “zero-support-tickets” goal? Well, the idea came a couple of years ago when I was at a conference in San Francisco. People do not want to spend time getting in touch with customer service representatives. They want products to work well and be user-friendly, so they can use it without anyone’s help. If a product is efficient and easy-to-use, there should be no need to speak with a technical support representative.

Following this logic, we are improving our product so that all parts of it work seamlessly so that using it is effortless and you do not need to contact our support team anymore.

NEW CUSTOMER PORTAL.

We have made available a great deal of technical information on our newly-released support website, which can be accessed directly at success.tanaza.com. There are hundreds of articles to guide you on how to best use the Tanaza product, but this is not just a “knowledge base” website. It is also an active community consisting of Tanaza partners and customers, where you can discuss Tanaza features, provide ideas for enhancements, and more.

SUGGEST AND VOTE NEW DEVICES AND FEATURES.

Through the customer portal, you can suggest new access points to support as well as new features. Via the “Ideas” tool on our support site, you can upvote other people’s suggestions and receive support for your own. This allows our product team to efficiently evaluate which are the most needed features to focus on.

ACCESS POINTS SELECTOR.

One of the most frequently asked questions by customers is, “What access points do you suggest to use for this deployment?”. Well, consider that the answer changes depending on a number of factors, including locations, requirements, number of connected clients, budget constraints, and so on. In light of this, we created a tool, available at https://success.tanaza.com/s/access-point-selector , which automatically selects the best access points for your deployments based on a set of filters.

GDPR COMPLIANCE.

Going into effect May 2018, the new Data Protection Regulation will impact how EU citizens’ personal data is treated by companies and data processors. Last October, we set up a specialized internal team to focus on getting Tanaza ready for the GDPR deadline: we researched the areas of product and business which were impacted by GDPR, rewrote our privacy policy, road-mapped the necessary changes and improvements, and improved the efficiency and speed of our internal processes and procedures.

SUPPORT? FASTER THAN EVER.

Thanks to the reduction of support tickets, we are now able to answer 98% of your requests within 12 working hours. That’s cool, eh?

Enhanced usability and interface

When speaking about UX/UI, our goal is not just having a “fancy interface”.

What we want to offer, is the most effortless WiFi management tool possible.

Tanaza: As easy as can be.

NEW LOOK AND FEEL.

During 2017 we reviewed our Cloud platform interface to make it cleaner and more modern. In the upcoming year, we plan to continue to improve our interface: we’ll keep you posted about this in the next weeks.

FULL RESPONSIVENESS.

MSPs and system integrators need to manage their networks, access points and SSIDs from their mobile devices. As a result, we are currently working very hard to make our platform fully responsive, so that any action that you normally perform from your desktop or laptop computer can also be effortlessly executed through your mobile devices.

We speak your language

Though we have our offices in Milan, Italy (by the way: everyone is welcome, and if you’re visiting Italy, come and meet us!), our reach is global.

We are currently managing customers and partners in more than 130 countries with an international team of 25 people speaking 12 languages.

MULTILINGUAL TEAM.

Serving hundreds of customers with thousands of access points, located in 130 countries in almost 20 different time zones… is really tough! We have managed to do it thanks to our bright and capable team, composed of 25 people coming from all over the world and speaking 12 languages.

MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE.

With over 120 new blog posts published each year and pages available in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish and German), Tanaza’s website and its blog have become a point of reference for wireless professionals.

Tanaza’s blog has recently been ranked the 42th Best Blog in the world for Networking.

MULTILINGUAL SPLASH AND DASHBOARD.

With the addition of two more languages in the last month, our dashboard for WiFi analytics is now available in 14 different languages, including Arabic, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese.

An array of compatible devices

Keeping the pace of the latest technological advancements means, for us, developing our software’s compatibility with the most used wireless access points.

WiFi 5.

Since we’ve seen a growing number of customers and partners looking for high-performing, high-speed devices, we have increased our compatibility with the most used WiFi 5 wireless devices. Our upcoming plan is to also support some MIMO 4×4 models and some WiFi 5 Wave 2 models.

FLASHING, MADE EASIER.

When making new devices compatible with our firmware, we want to make sure that they are easy to flash. We are now working on a new tool, which is already available in beta phase, which allows you to flash dozens of devices in seconds, in one simple click. This tool has already been used successfully with some Ubiquiti and TP-Link devices, and we are extending its compatibility so that you can use it with all other Tanaza supported models and brands.

DEVICES WITH “CAPTIVE ON LAN” FEATURE.

Some of our customers and partners cannot use compatible devices, but still want to get the power of the Tanaza captive portal. For this reason, we have started enabling the new “Captive on LAN” feature on some of our compatible devices. During 2017 we increased the number of devices compatible with this feature and we will continue to add more during this upcoming year.

FUTURE COMPATIBILITY.

By introducing new brands and models, we will widen our list of compatible devices. We will focus on brands with an important market share in our developing markets and we will expand our compatibility towards more outdoor devices and maybe, also to some tri-radio access points.

EASY SHIPPING PROCEDURE.

To carry out our compatibility expansion work more effectively we need your help. Being based in Italy, it is sometimes hard for us to get the exact same version or model of access point you find in your country. For this reason, we want you to send us the access point you would like to have supported! Our support team will pay all expenses, including custom fees, for all the access points sent to the Tanaza Research & Development Lab. Once we receive the access points, we will analyze it and let you know whether it can be supported by us, or not.

Handy Wi-Fi management tools

We are enriching our cloud management platform with advanced enterprise-level tools for wireless networks management and diagnostics.

SEARCH TOOL.

Thanks to our search tool, it’s now easier to search across hundreds of thousands of access points, networks and SSIDs without having to manually scroll through an extensive list! You can just enter the SSID you are looking for in the search bar the name, and you will find it within seconds.

ROGUE ACCESS POINTS DETECTION.

We have extended the usage of our newly-released feature to all customers and partners. The rogue access point detection system enables you to detect any unwanted access point broadcasting your same SSID name.

RESTORE STOCK FIRMWARE FROM CLOUD.

We understand that sometimes, people might want to restore the stock firmware of the device and stop using Tanaza. We don’t want to lock these people in with our firmware, that’s why we made it easier to restore the stock firmware of the access points in one click, from the cloud. This feature is already available for most of the compatible devices and will be extended to more devices in the future.

WALLED GARDEN NOW WORKS WITH BOTH IP AND DOMAIN.

Thanks to this feature, network administrators can set up (by domain or by IP) the list of websites that people can browse without authenticating to the WiFi network.

New captive portal features

We are allowing business locations to deploy high-quality, easily-accessible and secure WiFi for their guests.

CONTENT FILTERING.

Internet is an opportunity, but it might be also a threat to people and businesses. This is why during 2017 we started offering DNS-based web content filtering and malware protection on top of Tanaza WiFi networks.

FASTER CAPTIVE PORTAL.

Some changes have already been made: for example, our captive portal has been made faster thanks to last year’s 2.14 firmware upgrade. The captive portal can now handle thousands of devices connected simultaneously.

FLEXIBLE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

We have developed a new “terms and conditions” widget for our splash page editor that allows you to be compliant with your local privacy regulations, by asking people to give their consent to multiple terms and conditions text elements.

EMOJIS IN SSID NAMES.

In many countries, there are many SSID names available and it is very hard to make your network name stand out. This is why we have released this new feature, which allows you to add Emoji images to your SSID name to make it stand out among the other and thus, encourage more people to connect to your splash page.

SCALABLE WIFI ANALYTICS DASHBOARD.

Our WiFi Hotspot Analytics dashboard has been improved to answer the needs of our largest MSP partners, which are now managing thousands of devices and some hundreds of thousands of records in their WiFi client database. We were thrilled to see just how quickly our partners were able to grow in this market. Now, with the improvements made to our Dashboard, it can be a great aide as they scale their businesses.

FORM-BASED AUTHENTICATION.

We know that sometimes, the clients’ data provided by Facebook or other social networks is not enough for businesses to re-target customers with personalized direct marketing activities. For example, a supermarket might want to know more specific information from certain clients, such as the number of members in their family. To obtain this sort of personal information from customers, we created the powerful form-based authentication tool with customizable questions and fields.

CODE AND SOCIAL LOGIN.

In some locations, like coffee shops, there is the need to use social WiFi to gather clients’ data, while at the same time allowing only customers to connect. To make this model work, we created a feature that, first, requires customers to provide a WiFi access code (which is usually printed on their purchase receipt); then, allows them to log in either using their social accounts or by filling in a form, so that their data is collected in the WiFi analytics dashboard.

VOUCHER BASED AUTHENTICATION.

You can now export coupons and add your own coupon codes for voucher-based authentication. This means that you can export coupon codes and print them in your preferred format and layout so that you can customize coupon vouchers with your own brand. Also, you can copy and paste your custom code database into our system, so that you decide which is the coupon code used by customers when they are logging in.

Conclusion:

We are strongly focusing on our customers’ and partners’ needs;
We are enhancing our interface and improving usability, particularly for who is managing thousands of networks and has the need to scale up;
We are expanding internationally and opening new markets;
We’re enhancing our compatibility with top-notch high-performing devices, to keep pace with the latest technological advancements;
We are providing advanced tools for WiFi networks management via cloud;
We are expanding our feature set in the hotspot segment at a very rapid rate, to enable new business models and use cases.

We are aware that some of our customers have felt that their needs haven’t been met lately, but we have decided to focus primarily on that which benefited the majority instead of the few. We wish to continue to receive feedback and suggestions from all of our customers and we promise will to answer to your needs as quickly as possible and in the best way. On this note, we would like to encourage you to make use of our online community by contributing to it, suggesting new feature ideas and requesting the support of new devices, and getting your suggestions upvoted by other partners and customers.

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce a couple of new things. First, I will continue to make regular contributions to the Tanaza blog as a means of keeping you posted about our roadmap advancements and/or any future changes. Second, we will continue to host frequent webinars about new features and system updates to inform you in real-time about what happens here at Tanaza.

Last but not least, if you are ever in the area and would like to have a quick chat (or just a cup of coffee) … just drop us an email!

Hope you are as excited about the current and upcoming changes as we are.

It’s going to be a great year!

See you soon!

Sebastiano

The 4 best Wi-Fi analyzer apps to boost your network speed

by Marketing Team | Jan 16, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, WiFi Networks, Wireless Hardware

The 4 best Wi-Fi analyzer apps to boost your network speed

Check out our list of the 4 best Wi-Fi analyzer apps that help boosting your network speed and improving your Wi-Fi signal strength.

If you want to optimise your network you should download one of the following Wi-Fi analyzer apps on your Android or iOS device. A Wi-Fi analyzer and scanner is a valuable tool for both IT professionals and home users as it provides a wide range of detailed information about the performance of your Wi-Fi connection, such as: Wi-Fi channels scanning, Wi-Fi signal strength detection, SSIDs discovery, number of devices connected to Wi-Fi hotspots, etc. In this way, network admins can check the channels in the area they’re operating on and choose the less crowded ones, so as to minimise interferences and signal dropouts and enjoy faster Wi-Fi speeds.

1. Test your Wi-Fi signal strength with WiFi Analyzer for Android

This Wi-Fi scanner app shows the Wi-Fi channels being used around your area and provides a Wi-Fi signal strenght tester that allows you to detect how strong your signal is. In this way, when setting up your WLAN deployment you will know where to better position your Wi-Fi access points for a better signal coverage and faster wireless network connection. WiFi Analyzer provides a very intuitive graphical representation of the channels nearby and helps you choosing the less congested ones.

Image source: Uptodown

2. Manage your Wi-Fi network directly on your device with WiFi Manager for Android

The WiFi Manager analyzer tool is ideal for network monitoring and management and delivers useful information, i.e. network speed data, signal strength of your connection, list of SSID and networks, so as to improve the quality of your Wi-Fi directly on your device.

Further, should you operate on different SSID, it automatically connects you to the most reliable one.

The visual representation of detailed connection and network information is very intuitive and included in the app’s home screen widgets.

Image source: Google Play Store

3. Enjoy a great user experience with Netx for Android

This handy tool for network discovery and scanning comes with a neat and simple user interface, allowing you to view the detected information through both graphs and ratings.

This Wi-Fi analyzer app shows SSIDs, signal strength and channels in use. Also, it scans the devices connected to your network and displays their related information, including IP Address, MAC Address and vendor info.

What is more, Netx is equipped with a network security feature that sends you alerts if unknown devices connect to your network.

Image source: Google Play Store

4. Test your network speed with Network Analyzer by Techet for iOS

This WiFi analyzer app is available on the App Store for iOS devices only, both iPhone and iPad.

Among its effective features, this tool scans your WiFi LAN, by filtering all network devices around you and discovering their SSID and IP addresses, and detects issues in your network configuration, internet connectivity and even remote servers.

This WiFi scanner application comes with a fast internet speed tool that allows you to test both download and upload speeds, see the results with graphs and view your previous results in history.

Image source: Apple Store

How to build a reliable Wi-Fi network for offices

by Marketing Team | Jul 10, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, WiFi Networks

How to build a reliable Wi-Fi network for offices

The Internet literally revolutionised the way companies work, communication is now easier than ever, information is shared in a blink of an eye and cloud applications for business management are proliferating. We have all faced an internet disconnections in the office and been stuck, unable to work.

That is why having a reliable Wi-Fi network in an office is something fundamental.

When deploying a WLAN at your offices, there are two main points that you should consider: the infrastructure of the network and the management of Wi-Fi access for employees.

The network infrastructure

First of all, you need to receive internet from an internet service provider, choosing the offer wisely according to your bandwidth needs. Consider that the number of users and the level of usage will define your needs in Mbps.

Example:

Tanaza’s sales & marketing offices: 20 employees, high usage of the internet, 200 Mbps.
For 50 employees, high usage of internet (video streaming and VoIP calls), consider 600 Mbps – 1 Gbps.

Once you have determined the quantity of bandwidth needed, now comes time to choose the hardware.
There are currently many vendors on the hardware market, and each access point has its own characteristics regarding design and performances.

Regarding the aesthetic of the access point, it is better to opt for ceiling mountable access points that can be installed almost everywhere and don’t occupy space on desks. Eventually, if you want to cover a little garden or any outside area, you will also need an outdoor access point, otherwise, use indoor access points for your offices.
The Ubiquiti AC series (like UAP-AC-Pro, UniFi LR or UniFi Lite) access points or the LigoWave Infinity series can answer to your needs for your offices.
Last but not least, access points like from EnGenius fit perfectly for this kind of deployment, consider to use 3 of them for an open space with 50 employees

Management of the Wi-Fi access for employees

Having a free internet access is necessary for little tasks at work like answering to emails, send files through DropBox or Google Drive, communicate with customers using Skype and much more. But a Wi-Fi network has to be configured to secure and regulate its access.

A cloud management platform for a Wi-Fi network is the best option because you can modify and configure the network from any device, at any time and in any place. You can decide whether to ask a managed service provider to manage your network or to do it on your own.
Tanaza is a multi-vendor software that allows you to manage your Wi-Fi network easily and remotely, from the cloud.

With Tanaza, the network administrator has the possibility to restrict the number of devices per user, control the status of the access points in real-time, and receive automatic emails in case of troubleshooting. Managing a network becomes something really easy and scalable for the network administrator that has access to all kinds of settings right at his fingertips.

When deploying a WLAN within offices, the network administrator can simply configure different SSIDs protected with a password.
For example, the administrator can configure one SSID for the IT staff of the building and another one for the employees. Both require a password to access the Wi-Fi.

The role of the network administrator is also to control the Wi-Fi usage. You don’t want your employees to have access to inappropriate websites while they are at work or to spend too much time on social media sites, like Facebook. For this reason, Tanaza developed a content filtering feature to monitor the network usage and allow you to set up your own rules.

One typical configuration of your Wi-Fi network could be to block the access to all websites like pornography, violence, betting, online games, video streaming etc.
You could also decide to block social media access from 9 am to 1 pm, authorise it during the lunch break and block it again on the afternoon. The platform of this tool has already its own blacklists that are automatically updated.

The content filtering tool is easy to use and flexible to all businesses: it can be used as a real parental control and blocks malware internet pages.

The content filtering is fundamental for your office ‘s Wi-Fi network.

Try content filtering!

Related articles:

3 RF basics you should know to better design your WLAN

Why Tanaza does not make you pay per concurrent users or splash page views

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/top-3-liabilities-wi-fi-hotspot-providers-offering-free-wi-fi/