By Amanda McElfresh, amcelfresh@theadvocate.com
This article is brought to you by Cox Business.
Having a strong and reliable wireless network can be a gamechanger for a business owner. Customers can use it to share photos and experiences on social media, spreading the brand’s name to more people. Others may choose to place orders or pay using a mobile device to streamline the process. Employees can connect with colleagues, track inventory and monitor the premises.
However, a quality wifi system is much more than a modem and a router. For business owners, a managed wifi solution is more robust and secure, with additional capabilities that can make them more efficient and better able to serve customers.
“Our managed wifi is professionally designed to ensure a secure network with firewall protection that can cover every part of a building or only certain areas,” said Calli Trabeaux, a senior product marketing manager with Cox Business. “Our managed wifi solution is completely scalable. We can provide it to a customer with a 2,000 square foot building, a large high rise hotel, or anything in between. It is definitely a customizable solution.”
For example, Trabeaux said Cox Business managed wifi customers can create splash pages, which automatically show up on a device when someone logs onto the network. These pages can be used as marketing tools to share more information about the business or coupons for special discounts. They may also prompt customers to enter their email addresses, which business owners can use to contact them in the future.
In addition, a managed wifi network can be turned off during non-business hours. Trabeaux said this added protection can prevent people from parking near a business and using its wifi to stream content, which uses valuable bandwidth, or download illegal content, which can be connected back to the network and could mean trouble for the business.
“The security aspect is really a main advantage of having managed wifi,” she said. “We offer a secure private network to run a business and a separate guest network with firewalls. We also offer speed tiering, which limits the amount of bandwidth guests can use to ensure each customer has a sufficient amount. Nobody wants a situation where someone is streaming content and slowing down business or the network for other customers.”
Trabeaux said that as technology evolves, businesses are finding new and unique ways to used managed wifi. Besides functions like wireless printing and contactless payments, some companies even use the network to control aspects of their facilities, such as thermostats, locks, lighting and more. Others have created separate managed wifi networks for employees – one to use for business purposes and one to use exclusively in break rooms or non-work areas for recreation, such as streaming videos or using social media.
Trabeaux emphasized that Cox Business seeks to partner with a business’ internal IT staff on managed wifi needs by handling some routine responsibilities, monitoring equipment and quickly addressing any outages, allowing IT personnel to focus on larger initiatives.
“We aren’t coming in to take anyone’s job,” Trabeaux said. “We want to work with them to help their business be more effective and able to do more than they could before. A lot of times, people are scared of the unknown, but we do want to be a true partner.”
For more on Cox managed wifi and other business solutions, visit www.coxbusiness.com.