How WiFi 5 Wave 2 and WiGig improve the Wi-Fi experience

by Marketing Team | May 24, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, WiFi Networks

How WiFi 5 Wave 2 and WiGig improve the Wi-Fi experience

In this post we will focus on the latest innovations that WiFi 5 and WiGig technologies will bring to the market, in order to effectively improve and expand the Wi-Fi experience. Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 and WiGig are the latest Wi-Fi technologies that will bring new features and benefits for Wi-Fi users. At present, indeed, the market requires innovative Wi-Fi products that can meet users’ expectations in terms of higher performance and capacity. Let’s find out how Wi-Fi certified ac devices with Wave 2 and WiGig will empower the Wi-Fi experience.

WiFi 5 Wave 2

Wi-Fi Alliance’s WiFi 5 standard with Wave 2 certification has been designed in order to provide Wi-Fi networks with multi-gigabit speed and high performance. It increases capacity by better handling bandwidth hungry apps – such as YouTube, Skype and Netflix – from a larger number of Wi-Fi-enabled devices, i.e. smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc., which are simultaneously connected to a Wi-Fi network. This last element helps limiting network congestions and it is realized by virtue of MU-MIMO. Multi-user Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), indeed, allows multiple devices to be connected on the same network and still benefit from high performance. In addition, the WiFi 5 Wave 2 technology aims at improving maximum channel bandwidth, by bringing it from 80 to 160 MHz, as well as at reducing channel interference. The Wi-Fi ac standard, indeed, supports the use of additional channels in the larger 5 GHz band, so as to better avoid the overlapping of many devices operating on the same channel. You can opt for many access points supporting the WiFi 5 Wave 2 technology with MU-MIMO on the market. Here are the multi-vendor models supported by Tanaza: TP-Link AC1200 (Archer C5); TP-Link AC1750 (Archer C7); Ubiquiti UAP-AC-PRO; Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC LR; Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC LITE.

WiGig

The Wi-Fi Certified WiGig technology will provide a high-quality Wi-Fi experience, as it will enable Wi-Fi devices to use not only the current 2.4 or 5 GHz frequency bands, but also the less congested 60 GHz: this will expand the Wi-Fi network capacity, which will benefit from a multi-gigabit per second transmission speed and seamless data transfer across the three bands. In this way, WiGig will reduce interference and increase available bandwidth in any crowded location. Furthermore, by virtue of higher speeds and an increased bandwidth availability, Wi-Fi-enabled devices incorporating the WiGig technology will be able to: stream high-definition videos, i.e. virtual reality 4K videos; download movies in a quicker way; benefit from an improved virtual reality gaming experience; handle apps that consume a lot of bandwidth in an easier way; enable wireless docking between devices, i.e. the wireless communication enabled between a laptop and smartphone, projector, or other peripherals. All in all, by virtue of Wi-Fi Certified ac Wave 2 and WiGig technologies, Wi-Fi products will expand the Wi-Fi experience and will open up high-performing usages possibilities.

Why IT vendors are turning off LEDS on wireless access point

by Marketing Team | May 19, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, Industry news

Why IT vendors are turning off LEDS on wireless access point

Why IT shops are turning off the wireless access point LEDs

Access points manufacturers are thinking about turning off the wireless access point LEDs after consumers complained about its inconvenience.

Access point manufacturers are trying to combine performance, design, and comfort when designing and producing new access points. About the design of the access points, some brands like Ubiquiti, Google OnHub or Linksys made a real effort and designed access points easy to merge within the décor.
Nevertheless, from a comfort point of view, consumers are complaining about the light-emitting diode (LED) mainly because they worry about the health effect of a blue light glowing all night and about the inconvenience of a LED shining in their eyes.
It is true that now, with the democratization of Wi-Fi, designers must adapt the product to different environments like hospital rooms, restaurants, dorm rooms, offices and so on.

Therefore, to maximize performance, it is better to put the access point as close as possible to the places where Wi-Fi users sit, stay, walk … so the story of the shining LED (that could sound like a whim) answers a real problem that must be taken into account by access points’ brands.
This LED, usually on the front part of the device, is used to convey information to the user about the device’s status. Each LED has its meaning, and it might change according to the device’s model. For example, the light is ON or flashing when the device is operating correctly, sometimes it changes color when there is a problem of connection, or it turns off when the device is not working.

Many vendors have already decided to turn off the LEDs on many access points, often remotely and at times without warning their clients. Reactions were almost all the same from consumers – “My access point is offline, the LED is not shining anymore.” In fact, without the light, a consumer might not know if his device is running correctly or if it has a connection issue, but explaining case by case that the device still works and that the LED is just turned off for comfort reasons is time-consuming. The only solution for the brands is to find a way to keep the communication with the consumer through the LED system without being annoying for them.

Related articles:

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/is-mesh-the-best-choice-for-your-network/

Google’s access points still have drops in connectivity

In-wall Wi-Fi access points: an innovative solution for hotels

Why you should not ask for both Like and Check-in Facebook login page

by Marketing Team | May 19, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, Wi-Fi marketing

Why you should not ask for both Like and Check-in Facebook login page

Tanaza features a captive portal, the web page that the user sees when he tries to log into your Wi-Fi network. On the login page, you can ask your customers to Like your Facebook page or to check-in in your location on Facebook before accessing Wi-Fi. However, in this article, we will explain to you why it is not a good idea to ask for the Like and the Check-in to your customers on your login page.

Why you should not ask for both Like and Check-in Facebook on your login page

In a previous article, we talked about why simplifying your Wi-Fi user login process is important, and we concluded that asking for too much information during the login process can deter customers from connecting to your free hotspot.

Tanaza gives you the possibility to ask your customers for a Facebook Like or for a Facebook Check-in on your login page before accessing the wi-Fi network. By doing so, you can keep a contact with your customers by appearing on their Facebook news feed: you customers will see if you are organizing a special event if you are promoting a new service or a product etc. It also allows you to increase your visibility on social media.

Nevertheless, you can not force customers to give a Like or a Check-in, you can only ask for it. The customer has the option to skip the social action and log in to your Wi-Fi anyway.

In fact, Like Gating (you access Wi-Fi only if you give a Like) is totally forbidden by Facebook policies and the same for Facebook Check-in (only Facebook is authorized to do Check-in Gating). The user is free to do it or not and should have access to the Wi-Fi network in any case.

You might find companies that promote Like Gating for Wi-Fi, but you should be aware that Facebook has started to block their operations as they don’t respect their policies. Being compliant with the social network’s policies ensure you to have a login process that works, now and in the future.

Last but not least, a forced Like has less value than a spontaneous one. Forcing your customers to put a Like on your page is not a way to engage with them as those could decide to unlike your page right after. If your customers are satisfied, they will be willing to put a Like on your page.

Your best option is so to promote the Facebook Like or the Facebook Check-in without making it compulsory to access your Wi-Fi network.
A good layout of your login page will help you to make customers click on the login button and give a Like on your Facebook page or share their position in your location.
Moreover, we recommend you to start asking for a simple Like and then, for the returning user, to ask for a Check-in. Asking for two social actions at the same time is way too much for some customers.

Remember that the best way to obtain information about your customers is to create an incentive! In a bar, for example, you could offer juice or a muffin to every customer when they check-in for the first time at your location. Create a challenge like “if our Facebook page has more than 1K Likes, 20% on this product”. Be creative because social media is a way to boost your business and can really help you to grow.

To conclude, social actions available through the Facebook login help you to increase your visibility on social media and to communicate with your customers. Nevertheless, asking for a Facebook Like and for a Facebook Check-in could deter your customers to access your Wi-Fi network. You better ask a Facebook Like to your new customers and then a Check-in for returning users.

If you use Tanaza and you don’t know how to enable the social actions, follow the steps below.

Open the Tanaza Splash page editor and create your splash page with your logo, background, text, etc.
Adapt the text to your request (yellow squares)
Add the Facebook button and configure it: en able the social action to navigate
Select the social action: Like, Check-in or Like and Check-in (the user will be first asked to put a Like and when he will come back, he will be asked to Check-in within your location)Add the URL of your Facebook page
Save and publish

Screenshot 1: Adapt your text to your request and configure the Facebook login button

Screenshot 2: enable the social actions, select for example the Like

Screenshot 3: configure the Facebook Check-in

Remember to enable Facebook within the walled garden parameters of your Tanaza Cloud account, as shown below.

Screenshot 4: enable the Facebook login within the walled garden parameters

4 Wi-Fi cloud-based services you should offer to SMEs

by Marketing Team | May 11, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management, Networking

4 Wi-Fi cloud-based services you should offer to SMEs

Let’s find out in this post the main 4 Wi-Fi cloud-based services MSPs should provide SMEs with, in order to add value to their offering.

Nowadays, more and more small and medium-sized companies rely on cloud-based services to grow their Wi-Fi businesses and improve their productivity. According to the Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC), the overall spending on public cloud services will grow from $70 billion in 2015 to $141 billion in 2019 at the worldwide level. Specifically, from a company size point of view, SMBs counting less than 500 employees will count for more than 40% of the total expenditure. Accordingly, MSPs should leverage cloud computing to offer valuable cloud-based services to their customers.

In parallel to the overall growth of the cloud computing market, we’ve seen that an increasing number of manufacturers and software companies in the Wi-Fi space has started delivering cloud-based services to manage and monitor Wi-Fi networks, replacing hardware controllers with virtual cloud-based network controllers.

Here is a list of 4 much-sought Wi-Fi cloud-based services in the small and midsize markets, which MSPs should offer to add value to their services.

1. Cloud-based Wi-Fi zero-touch deployment

Small and medium-sized companies can gain greater flexibility from managing their Wi-Fi networks on the cloud, as they can run their businesses from anywhere, anytime. Furthermore, thanks to remote management enterprises do not have to take total control over the infrastructure anymore, which allows them to dedicate more time to other activities. Accordingly, you should provide a serviceable to make things easier both for you and your customers: the Wi-Fi cloud-based management offered by Tanaza, for instance, ensures 100% remote deployment, configuration, firmware upgrade, and troubleshooting. In this way, you won’t have to go on-site to reboot a broken access point, and you will be able to configure all aspects of your clients’ networks directly from the Tanaza Cloud Dashboard: this will save a lot of time for both of you!

2. Wi-Fi cloud-based monitoring

Cloud-based monitoring is a very useful service to offer, as it allows companies to save time and easily monitor their deployments located in one or more places worldwide. MSPs can rely on Tanaza, the easy-to-use, and affordable cloud-based software for remotely monitoring small or large networks of access points, in real-time. Furthermore, it gives the possibility to set up customizable instant alerts, i.e. through emails or SMS, if the system is experiencing issues, such as capacity overloads or faults.

3. Wi-Fi cloud-based content filtering and malware protection

The possibility for companies to filter web content based on their business needs is a must-have service. Through a cloud-based filtering solution, network administrators can block certain content, i.e. pornography and other distasteful or illegal websites, on the basis of a set of different categories. In this way, users can access only a selected range of domains while navigating online. Tanaza provides an effective and easy-to-use web content filtering system, which allows hotspot providers to check online content and effectively secure public Wi-Fi hotspots from very common cyber threats, such as malware and botnets.

4. Cloud-based Wi-Fi analytics

Your customers collect a broad range of useful data when users authenticate before accessing their Wi-Fi networks and want to leverage it to enhance their competitive advantage. Accordingly, it is smart to offer them the opportunity to collect this information and analyze it for their statistics and marketing purposes. Thanks to Tanaza, you can provide your customers with the right solution: a multi-tenant cloud-based platform for Wi-Fi users’ data analytics. The network admin can see different data stored on the user-friendly Tanaza Dashboard, i.e. the number of sessions, the number of new and returning users, and the number of Likes collected through Wi-Fi. Also, Tanaza allows filtering and segmenting data according to a variety of parameters, such as age range, gender, location, and login flow.

Is mesh WIFI the best choice for your network?

by Marketing Team | May 11, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, WiFi Networks, Wireless Hardware

Is mesh WIFI the best choice for your network?

Mesh WiFi networks are actually been around for a while. They are not a temporary tech type. This is well established. The debate since some time has instead shifted to the possibilities of using mesh technology to improve the performance of wifi networks and make them more reliable.

Is mesh the best choice for your network?

We all know that the best way to build a reliable, well-working and performing Wi-Fi network covering a large outdoor area is to add more access points through cabling. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. When there’s the need to cover an outdoor area without cabling, one of the possibilities is to use extenders or repeaters to boost the signal of your access point.
In a previous article, we explained to you why it is not a best practice for Wi-Fi networks, as the way these devices works reduces the bandwidth by 50%.

So, if you are deploying a Wi-Fi network within a large area, and you want to provide satisfactory Wi-Fi service to your customers, you need to find other options.

The second option you may want to consider is a mesh wifi network, that is composed of multiple access points (also called “nodes”) that “communicate” one to each other wirelessly. The mesh technology allows you to create a Wi-Fi network without using cables, simply by spreading access points with mesh technology around your outdoor location to cover all the dead spots.

The nodes of a mesh wifi network are all part of a single wireless network; the nodes communicate with the main router through mesh technology: each node is relaying the signal from one access point to another. In doing so, even the access point farthest from the main router is able to broadcast the Wi-Fi signal. The mesh router system can be the best option for those who wants to deploy or boost a Wi-Fi network within a big area, where cabling is not possible.

However, mesh wifi network is not a problem-free technology; unfortunately, it can be said that it provides more disadvantages than advantages. First, even if access points are not cabled to the modem through an Ethernet cable, they still need power; and this can be hard, in some outdoor locations. Furthermore, mesh network requires continue supervision by a skilled network administrator (a lot of work!); but, what is most important is that about 50% of your bandwidth is not available to Wi-Fi clients, as it is consumed by the network itself to keep links stable and ensure uninterrupted data transmission; additionally, there can be latency, as messages take time to get from a node to the gateway and vice versa (if the node is far from the gateway).

Example: a mesh router system could fit the Wi-Fi needs of camping spaces, open-air sport venues, etc.

To summarise , even if building a mesh network seems to be better than cabling multiple access points, you should be aware that the network will lost in Wi-Fi speed and bandwidth.

Thus, if you already have a mesh network installed, and you want to add the Tanaza captive portal technology to it, you can link one of the nodes to a Tanaza access point with the “captive on LAN” function enabled. This way, you will be able to manage and configure through Tanaza the login page (with social login) for your mesh network’s SSID.

Screenshot 1: link one of the nodes to a Tanaza access point with the “captive on LAN” function enabled

We’ve seen that using extenders, repeaters and mesh networks to cover outdoor areas can be problematic.
So… what is the best practice to build a strong, reliable network?
Wireless bridge is the best choice for your Wi-Fi network when you can’t use cables.
For example, Ubiquiti NanoStation can be used to create a 5GHz wireless bridge and then, Tanaza access points are connected to the Ubiquiti Nanostation devices to provide Wi-Fi to clients. The bridge’s main advantage is that you are not losing in bandwidth and Wi-Fi signal quality.

Screenshot 2: Ubiquiti NanoStation can be used to create a 5GHz wireless bridge and then, Tanaza access points are connected to the Ubiquiti Nanostation devices to provide Wi-Fi to clients

To conclude, ensuring the Wi-Fi speed and the bandwidth when deploying a Wi-Fi network in a big area is a challenge.
Extenders and repeaters are definitely not the solution as they are not powerful as real access point.
Mesh WiFi Network might be an option but you take the risk to lose in Wi-Fi speed and in bandwidth.
The best option remains the bridge that, combined to a software of Wi-Fi management, allows you to offer a qualitative service to customers. For example, the Tanaza software allows you to configure many access points from one single centralized platform based on the cloud: customize the user experience by creating different SSIDs and implementing a captive portal with multiple login methods, configure the user’s Wi-Fi session thanks to the Tanaza coupon system (time session, bandwidth limit, concurrent users…) and much more!

If you want to know more about how Tanaza can help you to manage your Wi-Fi network, click here.

How to tell if someone is stealing your Wi-Fi

by Marketing Team | May 9, 2017 | Classic Hotspot, WiFi Networks

How to tell if someone is stealing your Wi-Fi

Hackers try to access clients’ data by using the so-called “Rogue access points”. Rogue APs are devices that broadcast the same SSID name that your network is using, in order to illicity access your Wi-Fi clients’ information.
In this article, you will find hints to know if another device is using your Wi-Fi SSID name without your authorization.

By stealing your Wi-Fi we mean that an AP might be faking to be an authorized device within your Wi-Fi network without your authorization and so try to access your clients’ personal information. Moreover, if a hacker entered on your Wi-Fi network, he can also steal private data, like passwords for example.

Check with online tools and applications

You have the possibility to scan your Wi-Fi network thanks to online tools and applications.

For example, you can use Tanaza’s surveying tool, that scans all networks in your area.

Screenshot 2: scan all networks in your area thanks to Tanaza

Alternatively, you can use:

Router Checker, that checks the router’s connection settings; or Wi-Fi Inspector, to:

Fing Network Tools,
IP Tools: Network Utilities

How to protect my Wi-Fi network from hackers?

To enhance the security of your Wi-Fi network, you can first start to change the password that you use to manage your Wi-Fi network. Create a personalized one with caps, numbers and symbols.

Last but not least, be sure that your router runs the latest firmware in order to improve the security.

Related articles:

ISP in the US can now sell internet users’ data without consent

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/6-steps-optimize-wi-fi-network-infrastructure/

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/web-content-filtering-improves-public-wi-fi-hotspot-security/