A customer had a need to bridge their multiple wireless access points to one single SSID for their staff so that they didn't have to constantly change their phone wi-fi settings as they moved about the building. Its fairly easy to make one SSID but what if you want to have certain network access for each category of employee? What if you want guest wi-fi access that will prevent guests from being able to access everything else on the network? Their needs grew quickly into wants and even new things they didn't know they needed... and we were here to help.
When
July 2022
Who
This service was performed by our network engineer Brent.
For this project we had a fairly strict budget and we knew the goals. They wanted a staff wi-fi SSID that would move with them and they wanted a guest wi-fi that isolated guests from the network. Well there are many types and brands of wireless access points that can achieve this, so it becomes important to look forward and see if the technology we go with will be able to grow with your needs. So we asked the customer if they had any desire for a guest portal.
We explained that it would be similar to the guest wi-fi you might experience at a hotel where you have a portal where there is usually a code requested to grant access. Then you might be navigated to their website and a message saying you successfully gained access. Why would you want that? Well why not go with a solution that will add legitimacy to with a professional looking wi-fi portal that will let you ensure security by tracking movement on the network with an access code or by requiring an email address and making your wifi market for you by having a custom welcome page with your website and a link to your app?
They loved the idea. The concept of something necessary for your business also working for your business by marketing for you? It seems like a no-brainer, but either there's a lack of awareness about these features or its assumed that these solutions are expensive.
We went with Cisco business class wireless access points and a Cisco Business 350 PoE switch to create this solution. I know what you're about to ask, "Wait, I thought you said this wasn't an expensive solution?". Well you would be surprised that even Cisco has some fair prices. Even on their limited budget, we were able to obtain a power over ethernet business class switch, 5 access points, and install and configure the network.
We configured the wireless APs with a unified staff SSID where the devices connected would swap channels as they moved around the building and on a different VLAN (virtually segmented network) we added a guest wifi portal. On the switch we created multiple VLANs to virtually isolate each network and prevent devices on the guest network from seeing any other device but had access to the internet. And as another request from the customer, we all wifi-users from having access to illegal or inappropriate sites while on their network.
This is just one of the many services we offer and if this or any other success story inspires you to improve your own network or tech, let us know!
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