Walking You Through a Guest Wi-Fi Deployment

Gone are the days of walking into a doctor’s office and leafing through a magazine in the waiting room. No, it’s not because publishing is dead or that COVID took away our ability to share tactile items (though you could also debate both those facts), it mostly has to do with our fascination with the tiny rectangular devices we carry everywhere. In 2021, 15 billion mobile devices are in use across the world, according to Statista, and that number will jump to 18.22 billion devices by 2025. With games, information, articles, texts, videos and more at our fingertips, who needs waiting room magazines?

Rather than investing in Time Magazine subscriptions, more and more businesses like doctor’s offices, college campuses, restaurants, hotels and more, are putting their money into Guest Wi-Fi. More than being a convenient offering for guests, a Wi-fi connection actually has real impacts on a business’ bottom line considering the high percentages of people who indicate that the ability to log onto a network helps dictate where they shop, eat and stay. Guest Wi-Fi is an important connection to have and helps win customers while keeping your existing connection safe. Adding a guest network also prevents visitors from cutting into your business’ already planned or provisioned bandwidth for critical business tasks. Instead, guests have their own isolated guest network connection that does not touch your existing network.

Okay, so you’re on board with installing Guest Wi-Fi. Now, what happens? Here’s what you can expect from the process:

Step 1: Understanding the Customer Environment

For engineers, the first step toward installing a Guest Wi-Fi network is understanding the current customer environment, including the individual business needs, such as volume of visitors and security considerations. DQE’s Guest Wi-Fi also allows for web filtering to block specific URLs from being accessed via Wi-Fi, so understanding those needs are also key.

Step 2: Survey

After speaking with company reps, we’ll want to get to know the building as well. Through a site survey, engineers can evaluate the overall structure and infrastructure and identify the environment’s physical layout and characteristics, such as surface material, ceiling height and more. That helps ensure optimum coverage and identify the necessary Wi-Fi signal strength that your guests will need for a favorable experience. These are the factors that will determine where access points for the network will be placed. The access point(s) will grant Internet access for your customers, separate from your business’ primary network. This will help safeguard your network, while your customers happily surf the web.

Step 3: Internal DQE design and planning

With the information gathered in steps 1 and 2, DQE’s engineers can begin your specific network design considering all preferences, needs and set-up requirements. This is where the technical aspects such as security and bandwidth needs meet the customization offerings.

Step 4: Service provisioning

During the provisioning state, engineers will configure your Wi-Fi network, including setting the network name and security credentials so the appropriate users and devices can access everything as needed.

Step 5: Implementation

DQE’s Guest Wi-Fi is a turnkey solution that includes an access point, switch and DQE Internet connection. As you can see in the diagram below, the physical installation encompasses the set-up of several pieces.

Here’s more about each piece:

• The reliable ring-based Metro Ethernet network provides for the data’s transport.
• The router provides IP connectivity between DQE’s internal network and the remote customer.
• PoE Switch provides AP power
• DQE’s access points provide the Wi-Fi connectivity

For more information on DQE’s Guest Wi-Fi services, including the full list of benefits and features, visit our Guest Wi-Fi service page. If you’re ready to get started with your Wi-Fi deployment, contact our sales team today.