Main advantages of In-store WiFi for retail

by Marketing Team | Jun 24, 2021 | Classic Hotspot, Public Hotspots, Wi-Fi marketing

Main advantages of In-store WiFi for retail

Having WiFi for retail drives towards a huge number of benefits that will help increase the footfall in your store. It is an excellent strategy to acquire customers and increase in-store engagement. Offering free wifi to your in-store shoppers will encourage them to stay longer, and also, the chances of them visiting again significantly will increase.

The success of any shop, departmental store, and shopping mall depends on meeting the customer’s needs. Customer satisfaction is the most important factor if you wish to see your business reach heights. WiFi is a valuable resource since you can collect the customer’s data. The usage of WiFi will allow you to provide a personalized experience to your customers. You will better know your shoppers, and it will improve your service towards them. WiFi helps you target your visitors, and you can also use it as a marketing tool.

Benefits of in-store WiFi for retail

Everyone wants to excel in their business, and shop owners try to use different strategies to attract customers. They often wonder what benefits WiFi brings to their retail business, but let us tell you, it is the best way to enhance the shopping experience for your customers.

Using in-store WiFi for retail will change the way consumers buy. A survey has shown that around 67% of the customers use the internet while shopping. With WiFi, customers will compare the product’s prices, read its reviews, and even browse the deals. Even when customers are in the store, they go online and research a product to compare.

Now shopping has been shifted to provide an omnichannel experience to consumers. Omnichannel retail is a multichannel approach to sales that provides a seamless shopping experience to the customers. Consider a scenario where an article is not available in the store, but customers can track it with a QR code to the online store. The customer will continue shopping after ordering the product, which is possible with a good and stable WiFi connection. Using WiFi as a tool will provide a better customer experience with an increase in sales.

Better market segmentation

WiFi marketing has been in demand for a long time now, and it has benefitted retailers to much extent. WiFi marketing means when a retailer provides WiFi access to its customers and then uses it as a channel to collect customer information.

By using in-store WiFi for retail, you would be able to build a database of customer contacts. When a user authenticates to your WiFi network, they have to provide their personal information such as name, email, age, phone number, gender, and more. The customer will become known to you, and network admins will use the data to identify and segment their customers accordingly.

With the Classic Hotspot platform, network admins would be able to create personalized captive portals. Classic Hotspot also provides network admins with an option to choose among various user authentication methods such as email authentication, button login, telephone number, or social login.

Using the Classic Hotspot platform, you will find multiple ways to set up your marketing campaign. It is the best way of increasing your social exposure and revenues. With the data collected, you can keep in touch with your customers in various ways. You can send them push notifications for special offers for their birthdays/anniversaries, and various discount coupons on their devices.

The Importance of Data Security of in-store wifi for retail

Data security is one of the major concerns which comes into the minds of retail store owners when they consider installing a WiFi network. Every customer visiting your store doesn’t need to login again and again since they can use social login, which increases the security of your business. However, customers visiting a store with an unsecured network can compromise the store’s confidential data and put risk on other customers’ data.

To improve WiFi security, network admins must constantly check their usernames and passwords to ensure that only authorized persons can connect to the network. The Classic Hotspot’s communication architecture and protocols are explicitly designed to provide the highest levels of security. The traffic coming from client devices and access point management passes through a 256-bit SSL encrypted tunnel separated for safety.

Improve your network security with Classic Hotspot domains that are certified. The platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services to ensure the highest levels of reliability in the market.

Enhance Customer Experience

It is no surprise that providing WiFi to users is not the first thing that comes to mind when expanding business. But it’s important to understand that it is not a mere tool just to provide free WiFi. It also helps enhance the customer experience, which will eventually benefit the retailers.

Network admins would capture and analyze the data they fetched from the customers to better understand them. The Classic Hotspot platform comes featured with an analytics dashboard where network admins can analyze all data collected from the WiFi network to detect the customer’s shopping trends. This will further help retailers to strategize their marketing campaigns accordingly.

For instance, if you see that families are the primary shoppers during the weekends, you can accordingly focus your sales strategy on the children’s section. Or if you believe more female shoppers are visiting during certain hours, you can target them with discounts on female clothing.

Increase Customer Loyalty

Using WiFi as a marketing strategy will take you a long way in expanding your business. Providing your customers with free WiFi access will let you know your customers better. The Classic Hotspot platform will help you collect the data effectively, and you can export the list of your WiFi users to any CRM and marketing platform such as Mailchimp.

Classic Hotspot allows you to generate new contacts and data in different ways. You can run high ROI marketing campaigns by sending users personalized emails to promote your new products, discounts, and collections. The ‘Remember me’ feature by Classic Hotspot lets users connect to the WiFi automatically once they return to the WiFi area they have already been in. This will increase the customer’s loyalty, and they will be happy to shop more. The Classic Hotspot platform helps you learn about your customers, which eventually enables you to target your shoppers based on their interests.

Increase Visibility On Social Media

With various authentication methods available within the Classic Hotspot platform, users can choose to log in from the most relevant one. Setting up the right login mode for your WiFi network is quite important. Social login is the fastest and easiest login mode for public places among all authentication methods. It is also the most suitable method to increase social visibility and online engagement quickly and efficiently.

With social login, you can also make the users like your social accounts such as Facebook Business page. It is an excellent way to get attention to your business. You will be able to provide more information about the business to the users regarding your venue, promotions, and discounts that you have on offer.

Through this, more people would be able to know about your business. The Classic Hotspot platform also allows network admins to get real-time data reports. They will personalize the client’s experience, monitor their social media hotspot usage, compare Facebook insights and social media analytics on their dashboards.

Over time the way consumers shop has changed drastically. To keep your customers engaged in your retail store, you have to look out for ways to keep up with your shopper’s demand. Offering WiFi for retail is quite beneficial, considering the perks that come with it. WiFi is an asset for your business that allows customers to connect to your business and directly influence them. It is the best opportunity to grow your sales and increase customer satisfaction. Enabling an omnichannel experience will result in more sales and will increase customer loyalty.

Start a free trial of the Classic Hotspot platform and personalize the consumer’s shopping experience while enhancing your brand awareness and boosting sales.

Manage the guest WiFi experience with Classic Hotspot. Start your 15-day free trial today

WiFi marketing for Bars and Restaurants

by Marketing Team | May 31, 2021 | Classic Hotspot, Public Hotspots, Wi-Fi marketing

WiFi marketing for Bars and Restaurants

WiFi Marketing is when a retailer or a restaurant owner provides wireless Internet access to its customers and then uses it as a channel to collect customer information. We might have observed that anyplace we go for dine-in, we get free WiFi. Well, this is a marketing strategy that will help you take a long way. For logging on to a restaurant WiFi network, network managers can provide users with an option to log in via their social media accounts or email addresses.

By providing free WiFi access to your customers, you are building a database of customer contacts. This database will be of great use as you can use it to send messages, promotions, or coupons to your customers. It is no surprise if WiFi marketing is not the first thing that comes into your mind.

Present a Customized Splash Page

With the help of WiFi marketing, you can grow your online presence by using a customized splash page. Classic Hotspot provides you with the software for WiFi hotspot management that allows users to turn their public hotspots into a marketing tool. It is the best way of increasing your social exposure and revenues.

Classic Hotspot provides you with a built-in captive portal that enables network managers to personalize the WiFi user’s login to the WiFi network. Classic Hotspot by Tanaza allows users to set up WiFi guest networks. It is up to the administrator to choose the login method to grant guest WiFi access through password, open access, or vouchers.

The captive portal or Splash page/login page/ splash portal/ landing page, is the page that a guest WiFi user sees before accessing a public WiFi network. With this web page, users authenticate themselves and then register to the WiFi network.

You can customize your splash pages accordingly by inserting the audio-video ads, displaying compelling messages that users will see during the authentication process. This captive portal is a powerful marketing tool that collects user data and segments it for tailored marketing campaigns.

The best part of using these splash pages is that you can either choose from the templates provided or create your own from scratch. With the various options for customization, you can design your splash page with a drag and drop feature that makes work easier.

Choose the right WiFi Authentication Login

Setting up the right login mode for your WiFi network is quite important. The users often look for the more convenient option for logging in to the WiFi network, which is not time-consuming. Classic Hotspot provides you with various options for login modes that allow you to gather different types of information regarding your customers. It all depends on the network administrator to choose from email authentication, button login, telephone number, or social login. The most famous and time-saving among them is a social login.

Most people access the WiFi by using the Social Login as it is the fastest and easiest login mode for public places such as bars and restaurants. Classic Hotspot allows you simultaneous types of authentication. You will be able to configure it in the Splash Page Editor by choosing the login button component. After selecting the button, select the desired login method from the login type drop-down menu. There are various types of authentication methods such as:

Social Logins (Logins via social networking sites)
Logins by Phone, Email, Email and phone, code and social, SMS, Form login
Paid WiFi (Couponing System)

Under the Paid WiFi system, the Classic Hotspot by Tanaza allows administrators to give users access via a code they create and customize. To enable this, you have to enable the Coupon authentication method on your splash page.

Generate Leads from WiFi

Providing your customers with WiFi access will help you know your customers better. By using the Classic Hotspot captive portal, you will collect data about WiFi users in a location. It allows the WiFi administrators to generate leads for the end-user customers. It is pretty simple and can be applied to any customer that has a physical location.

With the help of the Classic Hotspot platform, you would be able to position your brand and services better. Lead-generation through WiFi is quite cost-effective as there will be only fixed costs which will not be based on the number of collected leads.

Classic Hotspot captive portal comes featured with multiple authentication methods, and you can choose the one convenient for your users. With the help of WiFi, bars and restaurants would gather real and up-to-date insights about their clientele.

Network administrators can generate tons of leads through the Classic Hotspot captive portal. They can then export the collected data to a third-party marketing application like Mailchimp. The information of the WiFi users collected by the captive portal is automatically stored within Classic Hotspot’s analytic dashboard. It is a web-based tool to access social stats and client’s contact details.

Engage with your customer’s thanks to WiFi

Network administrators will be able to generate more online and offline conversations by engaging with their customers. When connected to WiFi, customers are more likely to look for discounts or offers. Using attractive splash pages can engage your customers to familiarize them with the brand and encourage them to make a purchase, and make them interact with the brand on social media by making them like your page.

Who doesn’t appreciate a genuine discount? So with the help of a WiFi network, administrators can encourage customers to come back to the venue by offering them discounts or coupons on the splash page. You can also provide them with information regarding any upcoming event.

With the data that the Classic Hotspot platform can collect, you will keep in touch with your customers in various ways. You can send them special offers for their birthdays/anniversaries, and various discount coupons on their devices.

Promote your Social Media Presence

The variety of authentication methods will let users connect to WiFi in ways they find convenient. Classic Hotspot by Tanaza provides users with a wide range of authentication methods to grant access to the Internet. The Social WiFi login allows users to connect to a WiFi network via multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linked In, and many more. It is one of the best ways to let your customers like your Facebook business page, which struggles to find the likes.

Using the Classic Hotspot platform, you will find multiple ways to set up your marketing campaigns. When customers choose to login into WiFi with Facebook, you can prompt them to like your page or do a check-in on your Facebook page. You can showcase your happy customers on your news feed. When your customers visit your Facebook business page and like your page, it increases the chances of getting noticed across similar audiences.

Manage and Control Access to WiFi

With the Tanaza, you’ll be able to manage and control the access to your WiFi. The Classic Hotspot by Tanaza will allow you to limit guest access to your WiFi networks. You can create your customized SSID by restricting the bandwidth per client. You can also distribute the WiFi vouchers with limited data and limit the number of devices connected to the network.

Distributing the data through vouchers is a good way to limit access to the Internet. By doing this, bars and restaurant’s owners can prevent unauthorized access to people who are non-customers. If unauthorized people are connected to the network, it will slow down the speed of the Internet.

Classic Hotspot platform provides you with various options among them. One is that you can provide your customers with voucher codes. This method will provide the users with a personalized password to access the WiFi network. The primary benefit of using the customized voucher codes is that you can keep unauthorized access away from your network.

Also, being a network administrator, you will configure data limit, duration, add an expiration date and quota limit. The Classic Hotspot platform also allows you to monitor your vouchers, remaining time, SSID connected to, amount of devices connected, and MAC address.

Verdict

By now, you have understood the importance of WiFi marketing. If you are still not taking advantage of it, you can miss an opportunity to improve your customer reach. WiFi marketing has its benefits in which you can turn your public hotspot into a lead generation and marketing tool. The public guest WiFi access provides marketing agencies with the unique opportunity to boost their business in a much short time. Join the Classic Hotspot platform today to manage and monitor the guest WiFi experience in the cloud.

Manage the guest WiFi experience with Classic Hotspot. Start your 15-day free trial today

WiFi in the Healthcare Industry

by Marketing Team | May 27, 2021 | Classic Hotspot, Industry news

WiFi in the Healthcare Industry

With the advancement in technology, WiFi in healthcare has made quite an impact in having effective communication between doctors and their patients. The healthcare industry has gone through some significant changes with its technological advances in the past few years. WiFi has several benefits that are not just restricted to communication. It is also used for oxygen monitoring devices, accessing electronic medical records (EMRs), smart beds, and real-time access to X-rays and MRI scans. The demand for staying ahead in tech has been felt in every industry, and it is necessary.
The optimal WiFi network in the healthcare industry is of utmost importance as it leads to connectivity throughout the hospital. There is a dire need for WiFi in the healthcare industry that provides users with access throughout the hospital to get accurate and timely monitoring of the patient’s vitals. There is an increase in the number of wireless medical devices in hospitals that focus on the best quality of patient care. WiFi has made improvements in the flexibility and efficiency of clinical services in the healthcare industry.

5 Benefits of providing WiFi in healthcare centers

Revolutionize the patient experience

The WiFi in the healthcare industry has truly revolutionized the patient’s experience by providing large numbers of users access to the hospital’s WiFi network without compromising its speed and signal strength. WiFi technology has helped a lot by improving communication with patients. Some patients in the hospitals are isolated, so the doctors contact them virtually. Doctors can share health information with patients by keeping them updated about the important things. They can set them a reminder regarding their upcoming check-ups, new clinical services, promotions regarding healthcare initiatives, or offer any medical advice.

Classic Hotspot provides you with the captive portal that includes a login page that is highly customizable on which network admins can add any information, announcements, videos, banners, etc. The captive portal is known by different names such as splash page, login page, or landing page.

You can customize captive portals accordingly, and patients can easily search on them about treatments and general information. It can provide fast access to less tech-savvy users. The splash pages act as a perfect marketing tool to collect user’s data and segment it. With Classic Hotspot, you can use your captive portal to communicate to your guest WiFi users promotions, insert audio-video ads, and display any message that users will see during the authentication process.

Create a Customized WiFi experience for patients

Apart from providing good connectivity and better communication between patients and doctors, an optimal WiFi connection will also provide patients with a feature to access their medical records via an online portal. You can provide your patients with a personalized experience from the beginning by making a splash page.

Classic Hotspot allows you to make an easy login page that will provide distinguished authentication through forms or link it with social login. With Classic Hotspot, you will create different SSIDs with different authentication methods. For instance, you can create a password-protected SSID for the medical officials or hospital staff. You can create another SSID for visitors that can register through the captive portal. You can make the third SSID hidden and can only be accessed by the authorized person who has its credentials. You can make up to 8 SSIDs on one access point and can configure each SSID separately.

The Classic Hotspot platform provides a variety of customization features from which you can choose according to your needs. The splash page editor by Classic Hotspot by Tanaza does wonders as there are many customization options to choose from. You can create a splash page from scratch or choose the one from the templates. The ‘Remember me’ feature by this platform lets users connect to the WiFi automatically once they return to the WiFi area they have already been in.

Gather the right information for parents

Having a secure browsing experience is all that a user needs. To avoid any data breaches, Classic Hotspot aims towards providing a safe and secure browsing experience for the patients. We know that many people visit healthcare facilities daily, so there must be no compromise on their data. The authentication method by Classic Hotspot allows the users to set up a guest WiFi network. They can be granted guest WiFi access through open access, password-based, and captive portals for paid or free WiFi. The authentication methods will allow hospitals to control networks and guest WiFi users while making your WiFi hotspots profitable.

The Classic Hotspot platform allows you to generate new contacts and data in different ways. You can opt for email marketing in which by using the Classic hotspot Mailchimp connector, you will be able to send opted-in email addresses directly to your Mailchimp account. You can collect user’s data to run high ROI marketing campaigns on your contacts list by exporting them to CRM or any third-party marketing platform. With the different Integration and APIs, you will access WiFi client’s data from anywhere and use it in valuable ways.

Provide a better and safer connection

It is important to have an integrated web content filtering system. Classic Hotspot offers such a system that, while managing the WiFi networks of the health institutions, can block users from accessing inappropriate or unauthorized websites and applications. The network admins have access to limit the range of content and domains that people can access while having a connection. This platform provides security and prevents bandwidth wastage by preventing access to unwanted websites.

In the Classic dashboard, you can configure your access points that you want to use with the content filtering service. It also allows you to have bandwidth control per client to limit the bandwidth per user in a select SSID. This feature will help to avoid bandwidth wastage.

Improve WiFi Network Performance

Classic Hotspot can increase the WiFi network performance by continuously monitoring the number of users connected to a particular SSID and checking the bandwidth they are using. If users feel that they are not getting the required speed or signal strength, they can shift them to different access points or a new SSID with minimal user connectivity. When setting up an access point, it is important to consider client coverage.

You can keep your network safe by making it password protected or giving access only to a limited number of devices. With the Classic Hotspot platform, all these customizations are just one click away. By limiting the number of current devices, you will save bandwidth wastage.

Simple web browsing or texting requires less bandwidth, whereas streaming videos on Netflix or YouTube will require heavy usage. Different web applications require different bandwidth. You can limit bandwidth per device which will then restrict them to use more bandwidth. Limiting the upload and downloading data per device will also save bandwidth and improve the overall WiFi Network performance.

Classic Hotspot provides you with a customizable WiFi experience that redefines the user experience. There is a dire need for a WiFi hotspot management platform in the healthcare industry that can efficiently and effectively assist in making the tasks easier.

Start managing your WiFi hotspots with Classic Hostpot

How to calculate WiFi network bandwidth requirements

by Marketing Team | Sep 11, 2020 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, WiFi Networks

How to calculate WiFi network bandwidth requirements

Network bandwidth is an essential factor in the design and maintenance of a functional WLAN. When building the infrastructure, you need to make a careful detection of how much bandwidth you will need to plan the right balance between performance and cost correctly.
How can you calculate WiFi bandwidth needs when designing the network? What specific considerations are involved?

In this article, we will present the reasons why it is fundamental to consider and adequately calculate the bandwidth requirements of the WiFi network you are going to deploy, to perform the most reliable network experience.

What is bandwidth in networking?

Bandwidth is the capacity of a channel to transmit data. During the transmission, the information is sent in a binary system, a language that encodes data using only two symbols (often defined as “1” and “0”, or “on” and “off”), each of which is called a bit.

The basic unit of this language, the byte, is composed of 8 bits. The bandwidth determines, therefore, the number of bytes that can be transmitted on the connection. The unit of measurement is the bits per second (bps). For example, a low definition video lasting 15 seconds, weighing 1 Megabyte, can be downloaded from an Internet site on your computer in 3-5 minutes if the connection is made via modem (56 kbps) or ISDN line (from 64 to 128 kbps). The same action takes a few seconds instead if the connection is broadband, like the one with the optical fibers (over 1000 Gbps).

Network bandwidth is the capacity of a network communications link to transmit the maximum volume of data from one point to another over a computer network or Internet connection in a given amount of time, usually one second. Bandwidth has the same meaning of capacity, and defines the data transfer rate.

Bandwidth, though, is not a measure of network speed.

As a matter of fact, the words “bandwidth” and “speed” are often misused as synonymous. The explanation of this misunderstanding can be, in part, due to their use in advertisements by ISPs that refer to speeds when they mean bandwidth. Indeed, speed refers to the rate at which data can be sent, while the definition of bandwidth is the capacity for that speed.

Why is it so important to calculate network bandwidth requirements before deploying a network?

Bandwidth can be compared to the volume of water that can flow through a water pipe. If the pipe is bigger, the water can flow in a massive quantity through it at one time. Bandwidth functions in the same way. So, the more bandwidth a data connection has, the more data it can send and receive at one time.

Consider that in any kind of deployment location, there are bandwidth limits. This means that there is a constraint to space for the data to flow. Therefore, multiple devices in a single area must share the bandwidth. Some devices request much more bandwidth than others. Greater bandwidth is absolutely necessary if proper speed must be maintained on different devices.

When do you need to calculate bandwidth?

Streaming, gaming, and other high usage activities demand a certain amount of bandwidth speed to get the best experience without buffering or lag. And the more bandwidth your network can deliver, the faster your devices will run.

Before you start designing your WiFi network, you should follow some steps to achieve your bandwidth goal.

1. Estimate how many devices will be connected to your WiFi network simultaneously

The majority of mid-high end wireless access points and wireless routers can have 255 devices connected at a time. Nevertheless, just because you can hypothetically connect 255 devices to a single WiFi router/access point doesn’t mean you should.
Each computer or device added to your network will degrade the bandwidth available to the other devices using the same connection. All those devices share the same wireless network and the same Internet connection from your broadband service provider. In this case, the congestion isn’t necessarily with the wireless connections. Still, it is with the amount of traffic or bandwidth that can pass through the Internet router to your broadband service provider.

Example
If you want to estimate how many concurrent devices will be connected, consider, for example, a hotel with 18 rooms for 2 people each. The hotel has 36 guests if it is fully-booked. If each guest has 1.2 devices, you have around 43 devices in total. We can assume that only 20 of 43 can be connected or generate significant traffic at the same time.

2. Calculate the application bandwidth requirement

Your bandwidth requirements also depend on the usage of the Internet your guests perform while being connected to your WiFi network. Some Internet applications, such as web browsing and instant messaging require low bandwidth, whereas other applications, such as video streaming and VoIP calls, require high-level bandwidth usage.

To implement a high-performance WLAN, network designers must consider external variables, such as the applications’ requirements in bandwidth and throughput networks.
Tanaza offers a useful way to calculate the bandwidth requirement of a network. We have created the tool “Access Point Selector” to suggest the ideal access point per location and application type. However, it’s also helpful to estimate the required bandwidth per-user connection. You can try it here.

In the image below, you can check the bandwidth needed and the throughput required for the mainstream applications, such as messaging, e-mails, social media, video calls, VoIP calls, web browsing, file sharing, and video streaming.

Or if you want to go more specific, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) provides a set of guidelines for Mbps needed based on digital activity.

Alternatively, you can measure the bandwidth requirements by usage. The chart below compares minimum download speed (Mbps) needs for light, moderate, and high household use with one, two, three, or four devices at a time (such as a laptop, tablet, or game console).

So, let’s keep the hotel’s example fully booked with a maximum capacity of 36 guests. Assuming each guest has 1.2 devices, you have around 43 devices, of which 35 are connected to the network simultaneously. All of them are browsing different applications.

If you are using our Access Point Selector tool, in a hotel with 35 concurrent users employing chatting/messenger services, e-mail, social media, web browsing, and video streaming, you will have, as a result, an estimated bandwidth per user of 3.33 Mbit/s. This means that the hotel would need at minimum: Location bandwidth – 117 Mbit/s.

3. Calculate network bandwidth requirements

As previously said, the measurement unit for bandwidth is bits per second (bps). But, modern networks have greater capacity. They are mostly measured in millions of bits per second (megabits per second, or Mbps) or billions of bits per second (gigabits per second, or Gbps).

Furthermore, bandwidth connections can be symmetrical when the data capacity is the same in uploading or downloading data, and asymmetrical when download and upload capacity are not the same. In asymmetrical connections, upload capacity is usually smaller than the download capacity.

In addition to testing, you have to calculate how much bandwidth is needed to run all your networks’ applications. To understand how much capacity you need, you must calculate the maximum number of users who might be using the network connection simultaneously and multiply that number times the bandwidth capacity required by each application.

To calculate the bandwidth need required you can use the following formula:

(Application Throughput) x (Number of concurrent Users) = Aggregate Application Throughput

Going back to the hotel example,

(3.33 Mbps) x 35 concurrent users = 117 Mbps

Note: the result you get here might exceed the bandwidth that the internet service providers offer.

When calculating your bandwidth needs, it’s a theoretical demand upper bound estimate that can help you to calculate the number of access points needed to support the bandwidth demands in a specific location.

If you want to calculate the number of access points needed in a deployment, check our latest article Network Capacity Planning – Wireless Capacity vs Coverage.

If you are deploying wireless networks, read also WiFi network design – What to take into consideration when designing WLANs, there are many factors to consider to plan out your network deployments thoroughly.

Would you like to stay up-to-date with the latest news and trends about the WiFi Industry and the Tanaza platform?

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How disaggregation allows you to reduce your CAPEX OPEX

Easier installation of Classic Hotspot on MikroTik devices from Windows

by Kelly Manrique | Mar 16, 2020 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, Wireless Hardware

Easier installation of Classic Hotspot Firmware on MikroTik devices from Windows

Now it is possible to install Classic Hotspot in a MikroTik device (see the list of compatible MikroTik devices) using a Windows computer in a much easier way than in the past. Our Customer Success team has created a step-by-step guide to walk users through the installation process using some free tools.

Thanks to this new procedure, available since February 2020, installing the firmware on MikroTik devices does not require anymore being physically where the AP is to reset it. Also, a virtual machine is not required anymore and the whole process takes much less time than before.

Read the article How to install Classic Hotspot Firmware on MikroTik devices from Windows.

Compatible MikroTik devices with Classic Hotspot

MikroTik hardware is well-suited for any size deployment. Primarily, the devices are used in the WISP environment. However, the devices also can be seen in enterprise deployments. Overall, the devices are low priced, which allows users to save costs when deploying networks.

The hardware is easy-to-configure, and when paired with the Classic Hotspot platform, users get a full set of professional features to manage WiFi networks and social hotspots with full software support from Classic Hotspot.

Advantages of using Classic Hotspot with MikroTik devices

By empowering MikroTik devices with Tanaza Classic’s firmware, users get a full set of professional features to manage WiFi networks and social hotspots.

With Tanaza Classic, users can create SSIDs for guests with the social login or email authentication. Also, it allows data collection and insights on customers to run targeted email marketing campaigns. Finally, users can control all networks remotely, from a single dashboard and configure each access point easily.

Have you ever tried to configure a Mikrotik hotspot?
Read the article Mikrotik routers: configuration of a WiFi hospot with login page.

List of MikroTik devices currently compatible with Classic Hotspot

Tanaza Classic supports the following MikroTik devices:

MikroTik hAP AC Lite and hAP AC Lite TC

These devices are dual-concurrent access points, which provide Wi-Fi coverage for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies at the same time. Both devices are suitable for indoor deployments, thanks to their compact dimensions allowing users to install the devices in offices, B&Bs, bars, and also in schools.

The only difference between the two devices is the sleek design of the hAP AC Lite TC device, which can be positioned either horizontally (desktop) or vertically (tower case) to save space. The hAP AC Lite version can only be placed horizontally.

MikroTik hAP AC Lite

MikroTik hAP AC Lite TC

Device Specification	Details
CPU nominal frequency	650MHz
Size of RAM	64MB
PoE-out ports	Ether5
PoE input	Passive PoE (10-28V input voltage)
Ethernet ports	Five 10/100Mbps
Wireless 2.4 GHz standards	802.11b/g/n (Wi-Fi 4)
Wireless 5 GHz standards	802.11a/n/ac (Wi-Fi 5)

MikroTik RB951Ui-2HnD and RB951G-2HnD

The RB951Ui-2HnD is a wireless SOHO AP while the RB951G-2HnD is a wireless SOHO Gigabit AP. Both devices come with a new generation Atheros CPU and more processing power. On the technical side, the differences between these two devices are minimal.

The RB951Ui-2HnD device has five Ethernet ports while the RB951G-2HnD has five Gigabit Ethernet ports. Besides that, both devices have one USB 2.0 port and a high power 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n wireless AP with built-in antennas.

MikroTik RB951Ui-2HnD

MikroTik RB951G-2HnD

Device Specification	RB951Ui-2HnD	RB951G-2HnD
CPU nominal frequency	600MHz	600MHz
Size of RAM	128MB	128MB
PoE-out ports	Ether5	N/A
PoE input	Passive PoE (9-30V input voltage)	Passive PoE (9-30V input voltage)
Ethernet ports	Five 10/100 Mbps	Five 10/100/1000 Mbps
Wireless 2.4 GHz standards	802.11b/g/n (Wi-Fi 4)	802.11b/g/n (Wi-Fi 4)

MikroTik RBwAP2nD

The RBwAP2nD is a weatherproof wireless access point. It’s perfect for outdoor installations where wireless access is required. Thanks to its unobtrusive look and sleek design the device can be fixed to any external wall from the inside of the case. It does blend perfectly into any environment, however, it is not recommended for high-density environments.

MikroTik RBwAP2nD

Device Specification	Details
CPU nominal frequency	650MHz
Size of RAM	64MB
PoE-out ports	N/A
PoE input	802.3af/at (11-57 input voltage)
Ethernet ports	One 10/100 Mbps
Wireless 2.4 GHz standards	802.11b/g/n (Wi-Fi 4)

MikroTik BaseBox2 RB912G-2HnD

This device is a solid and waterproof outdoor 2.4GHz wireless access point. It comes with two SMA connectors for connecting external antennas. The device also has a miniPCLe slot, which allows users to install an extra wireless card, resulting in a dual band device.

MikroTik BaseBox2 RB912G-2HnD

Device Specification	Details
CPU nominal frequency	600MHz
Size of RAM	64MB
PoE-out ports	N/A
PoE input	Passive PoE (8-30 input voltage)
Ethernet ports	One 10/100/1000 Mbps
Wireless 2.4 GHz standards	802.11b/g/n (Wi-Fi 4)

Future MikroTik devices compatibility

In 2019 Tanaza released its new platform for cloud management, which adds a new set of features for network managers. The new Tanaza platform is compatible with Tanaza Classic and allows customers to manage, monitor, and control their access points intuitively and easily.

Customers using Tanaza Classic can switch to the new platform by installing the TanazaOS operating system on their devices. TanazaOS will soon be compatible with the MikroTik devices currently available for Tanaza Classic. Also, many more devices are in the roadmap for the near future.

Furthermore, the device compatibility will be available to the TanazaOS Installer, a software application developed by Tanaza which allows users to install the TanazaOS operating system on compatible devices. The process is straightforward and does not need any manual procedure.

At Tanaza, we continuously work to support more access points and make WiFi network deployments seamless. Stay tuned, visiting the “What’s next” page where we regularly update about upcoming releases. Alternatively, visit Tanaza’s Blog and read about new features, device compatibility, and industry news.

Are you ready to test the new Tanaza platform?

Experience the power of WiFi cloud management in seconds with our free interactive demo.

What WiFi hotspot growth means for your business

4 rules to build the perfect splash page for your WiFi hotspot

4 rules to build the perfect splash page for your WiFi hotspot

by Marketing Team | Apr 16, 2019 | Classic Hotspot, Public Hotspots, Splash Page

4 rules to build the perfect splash page for your WiFi hotspot

Tanaza features a splash page editor that allows in few minutes the WiFi network administrator to create and customise the authentication page of a public hotspot. In this article, you will find the 4 rules to create an effective splash page for your WiFi users in order to leverage your WiFi network.

Easy and fast access to the WiFi network

When users visualise the splash page, you have a few seconds to convince them to log in. Accessing your public hotspot should not require too many efforts otherwise, you are taking the risk to loose potential WiFi users.

The best way to obtain an effective splash page is to make it simple and easy to use.

Don’t add too many items, focus on the essential

When creating a splash page, be careful not to confound simplicity with shortage otherwise, you could lose WiFi users with too many information on the landing page. This happens because we don’t respect a few design rules.

But which are these four design rules for an effective splash page?

1. Do not add too much content to the WiFi splash page

Less is more is the universal good design rule.

By putting just a few contents in the splash page you allow them to focus on the essentials items and you make the UI intuitive and immediate. When users click on your WiFi network name to access the internet, they expect a fast and easy way to log in.

Instead, they often deal with too complex pages, with too much information, which makes the login process too long and complex.

Add to the WiFi splash page only the essential items: logo, a welcome text, a few login methods. If you need users to accept your terms and conditions, ask your legal consultant to reduce the amount of text to a minimum (eventually link to the full text of terms and conditions).

2. Use a few colours in your WiFi splash page
The human mind needs time to elaborate the information, and this takes some effort. A splash page with five colours is more complex to understand than one with just one or two colours. Using a few colours, you allow users to relax and focus, making the WiFi access easier.

Choose monochromatic backgrounds or simple images, with just a few items and a uniform colour set. If you use many login methods (e.g. three social login methods) reduce the amount of space that each button takes, so that the page is less coloured.

3. Focus the attention on key elements

To make your splash page more intuitive, use some tricks to focus users on the most important elements.

Use the advertising tool to publish ads on your WiFi splash page

Use the Tanaza advertising tool to show advertising banners and videos. This way, you will focus your users’ attention on the show!

Use bold for titles

Help users to quickly examine the content in your page. Bold your titles (the most important message) and eventually complete the message with a normally formatted text. Using bold titles helps users read your message and login instructions.

Put some space between the elements

As in a book, distinguish the various elements in the splash page with some space and interline. Using white space helps to focus the users’ attention on single elements, such as your logo, text, or buttons.

Use images with a clear meaning

Don’t use images as a decoration, instead choose images that reflect the message you want to send and your brand image. Or, use them to drive emotions (e.g. the image of a smile, or a sunset).

4. Make your Wifi login page accessible

Make your WiFi splash page easy to access for anyone. Small text fonts, clear colours, or small buttons (hard to click from mobile devices) make the login experience too complex for someone.

How to make a WiFi splash page accessible?

Make the text readable

Use a larger font size, at least 20pt. Don’t try to be original by using complex font, for example, a font simulating handwriting, as they are less easy to read and less intuitive.

Create some contrast

Use a clear colour for text on a dark background, or the opposite. Create contrast by making the whole page clearer or darker and don’t use coloured rectangles under the text.

Create contrast between elements: if you use blue login buttons, use a red or yellow background.

Move buttons to the bottom

Make the experience better for mobile device users. Put the elements at the bottom by using the footer component in the Tanaza splash page editor, you’ll make the click from mobile devices easier.

Offer a way-out

If you use a social login method, offer an alternative method of authentication via email. Not all people have a social account or want to use it; some might prefer the email, instead.

Conclusion

Creating an effective splash page is not hard. Do not fill it with stuff: use just a few images, a few colours, a small amount of text and a few login methods.

Focus the attention on the key elements and make the UI simple, by using less colours. Make it also accessible, by using a large font size, contract, and moving buttons to the bottom.

If you want to collect users’ data through WiFi, use social login together with another authentication method such as the email login.

If you want to comment on this article, for example by adding your own examples of splash pages, we’ll be happy to provide some feedback!

Try the splash page editor!

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