Ohio Stadium: fans will soon enjoy Wi-Fi network

by Marketing Team | Apr 11, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Industry news

Ohio Stadium: fans will soon enjoy Wi-Fi network

Ohio State University plans to install a wide Wi-Fi network in Ohio Stadium and the Schottenstein Center to improve the fans experience.

Ohio State is resigned to offer free Wi-Fi to fans coming to the stadium. Indeed, After signing a contract in 2012 with Verizon to provide Wi-Fi to the stadium and basketball arena by fall 2015, the project was abandoned. While the lawsuit is still pending with Verizon, it doesn’t discourage Ohio State that found a new partner for the project.

A budget of $18.6 million has been approved by trustees to install wireless access points across the Columbus campus: the priority is to install Wi-Fi within the stadium, then the basketball area for fall 2019. Campus construction will be complete by December 2020.

Funded by the university and auxiliary funds, the objective is to build a seamless network thanks to indoor and outdoor access points, and offer a modern user experience.

Customers will be able to text, tweet and share their experiences on the internet without overloading cellular networks.
Wi-Fi will also allow the data capture and helps Ohio State to better answer to fans expectations, and event staff needs. Last but not least, the reliable Wi-Fi infrastructure will be a framework for future technological expansions like emergency responders, event staff and customers communication.

Wi-Fi in public venues like stadium, shopping center, parks etc is an effective way to improve the overall customers experience and gather insights about their expectations.
Moreover, Wi-Fi in public venues allows you to better target your clientele and understand their expectations to improve and adapt your offer. Tanaza dashboard helps you through analytics to use this data for marketing campaigns and newsletters.

How WiFi can become your new marketing tool?

by Marketing Team | Apr 3, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Wi-Fi marketing

How WiFi can become your new marketing tool?

WiFi is now recognized as a powerful tool for venues to retain customers and increase the time they spend on premises. In a recent survey, 62% of the business owners surveyed said that customers spent more time in their shop facility once WiFi was available. Moreover, 50% said that customers are willing to spend more money when having access to a WiFi network. In this article, we will explain how you can use your WiFi as an effective marketing tool.

First of all, offering a WiFi network within your venue is a real plus and allows you to enhance your customer’s experience, but it is also a way to get more information about your clientele thanks to the data capture. Indeed Tanaza enables the Social Login, an authentication process through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram etc.

As soon as your customers connect to the WiFi, their data are collected. All these information are stored on your online dashboard: gender, age, location, phone number, email address. We strongly recommend you to use a permission-based approach by offering your customers the ability to opt-in. Once you know better your customers, you will be able to engage them through personalised email newsletters, targeting a specific segment to adapt your offer and promote your events. Inform your customers and keep contact with them to encourage them to come back in your venue.

Moreover, allowing the Social Login WiFi will help you to get higher visibility on social media: you can ask your customers to like your Facebook page, check-in in your venue, rate your page on TripAdvisor, tweet something about your event etc. According to statistics, 50% of people learn about restaurants and cafés on social media. Social login WiFi has a lot of advantages, for more information, you can read this article.

WiFi in your location allows you to personalise the customer’s experience too. Tanaza software recognises your customers so that they can access the network automatically and make them feel like at home. You can redirect your customers to a landing page or your online store and encourage them to buy your products.

This is particularly useful for the retail industry because you can leverage the customizable Tanaza login page to advertise your brand and products and target your customers in a personalized way. For example, you can add discount coupons for new customers to use on their next visit, as a way to incentivize them to come back to your location.

Try Tanaza for free

Related articles:

Why Tanaza does not make you pay per concurrent users or splash page views

Top 3 liabilities for Wi-Fi hotspot providers offering free Wi-Fi

https://www.classichotspot.com/blog/collect-email-addresses-tanaza/

Next steps for Tanaza

by Sebastiano Bertani | Mar 27, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Cloud Management

Next steps for Tanaza

How many wireless devices can you connect to one WiFi router

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on this blog.

During the last 2 years, Tanaza has seen a huge growth: in its customer base, in its network of resellers and white label partners, and in the overall number of deployments. It has been an extremely exciting time for us and I am very proud of who we are and what we do today.

Now, I’m posting on this blog again because I’d like to announce the roadmap for the next year as well as give you an idea of the direction that the company is taking.

Sebastiano Bertani, CEO

Our “zero-support-tickets” goal

What’s Tanaza’s “zero-support-tickets” goal? Well, the idea came a couple of years ago when I was at a conference in San Francisco. People do not want to spend time getting in touch with customer service representatives. They want products to work well and be user-friendly, so they can use it without anyone’s help. If a product is efficient and easy-to-use, there should be no need to speak with a technical support representative.

Following this logic, we are improving our product so that all parts of it work seamlessly so that using it is effortless and you do not need to contact our support team anymore.

NEW CUSTOMER PORTAL.

We have made available a great deal of technical information on our newly-released support website, which can be accessed directly at success.tanaza.com. There are hundreds of articles to guide you on how to best use the Tanaza product, but this is not just a “knowledge base” website. It is also an active community consisting of Tanaza partners and customers, where you can discuss Tanaza features, provide ideas for enhancements, and more.

SUGGEST AND VOTE NEW DEVICES AND FEATURES.

Through the customer portal, you can suggest new access points to support as well as new features. Via the “Ideas” tool on our support site, you can upvote other people’s suggestions and receive support for your own. This allows our product team to efficiently evaluate which are the most needed features to focus on.

ACCESS POINTS SELECTOR.

One of the most frequently asked questions by customers is, “What access points do you suggest to use for this deployment?”. Well, consider that the answer changes depending on a number of factors, including locations, requirements, number of connected clients, budget constraints, and so on. In light of this, we created a tool, available at https://success.tanaza.com/s/access-point-selector , which automatically selects the best access points for your deployments based on a set of filters.

GDPR COMPLIANCE.

Going into effect May 2018, the new Data Protection Regulation will impact how EU citizens’ personal data is treated by companies and data processors. Last October, we set up a specialized internal team to focus on getting Tanaza ready for the GDPR deadline: we researched the areas of product and business which were impacted by GDPR, rewrote our privacy policy, road-mapped the necessary changes and improvements, and improved the efficiency and speed of our internal processes and procedures.

SUPPORT? FASTER THAN EVER.

Thanks to the reduction of support tickets, we are now able to answer 98% of your requests within 12 working hours. That’s cool, eh?

Enhanced usability and interface

When speaking about UX/UI, our goal is not just having a “fancy interface”.

What we want to offer, is the most effortless WiFi management tool possible.

Tanaza: As easy as can be.

NEW LOOK AND FEEL.

During 2017 we reviewed our Cloud platform interface to make it cleaner and more modern. In the upcoming year, we plan to continue to improve our interface: we’ll keep you posted about this in the next weeks.

FULL RESPONSIVENESS.

MSPs and system integrators need to manage their networks, access points and SSIDs from their mobile devices. As a result, we are currently working very hard to make our platform fully responsive, so that any action that you normally perform from your desktop or laptop computer can also be effortlessly executed through your mobile devices.

We speak your language

Though we have our offices in Milan, Italy (by the way: everyone is welcome, and if you’re visiting Italy, come and meet us!), our reach is global.

We are currently managing customers and partners in more than 130 countries with an international team of 25 people speaking 12 languages.

MULTILINGUAL TEAM.

Serving hundreds of customers with thousands of access points, located in 130 countries in almost 20 different time zones… is really tough! We have managed to do it thanks to our bright and capable team, composed of 25 people coming from all over the world and speaking 12 languages.

MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE.

With over 120 new blog posts published each year and pages available in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish and German), Tanaza’s website and its blog have become a point of reference for wireless professionals.

Tanaza’s blog has recently been ranked the 42th Best Blog in the world for Networking.

MULTILINGUAL SPLASH AND DASHBOARD.

With the addition of two more languages in the last month, our dashboard for WiFi analytics is now available in 14 different languages, including Arabic, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese.

An array of compatible devices

Keeping the pace of the latest technological advancements means, for us, developing our software’s compatibility with the most used wireless access points.

WiFi 5.

Since we’ve seen a growing number of customers and partners looking for high-performing, high-speed devices, we have increased our compatibility with the most used WiFi 5 wireless devices. Our upcoming plan is to also support some MIMO 4×4 models and some WiFi 5 Wave 2 models.

FLASHING, MADE EASIER.

When making new devices compatible with our firmware, we want to make sure that they are easy to flash. We are now working on a new tool, which is already available in beta phase, which allows you to flash dozens of devices in seconds, in one simple click. This tool has already been used successfully with some Ubiquiti and TP-Link devices, and we are extending its compatibility so that you can use it with all other Tanaza supported models and brands.

DEVICES WITH “CAPTIVE ON LAN” FEATURE.

Some of our customers and partners cannot use compatible devices, but still want to get the power of the Tanaza captive portal. For this reason, we have started enabling the new “Captive on LAN” feature on some of our compatible devices. During 2017 we increased the number of devices compatible with this feature and we will continue to add more during this upcoming year.

FUTURE COMPATIBILITY.

By introducing new brands and models, we will widen our list of compatible devices. We will focus on brands with an important market share in our developing markets and we will expand our compatibility towards more outdoor devices and maybe, also to some tri-radio access points.

EASY SHIPPING PROCEDURE.

To carry out our compatibility expansion work more effectively we need your help. Being based in Italy, it is sometimes hard for us to get the exact same version or model of access point you find in your country. For this reason, we want you to send us the access point you would like to have supported! Our support team will pay all expenses, including custom fees, for all the access points sent to the Tanaza Research & Development Lab. Once we receive the access points, we will analyze it and let you know whether it can be supported by us, or not.

Handy Wi-Fi management tools

We are enriching our cloud management platform with advanced enterprise-level tools for wireless networks management and diagnostics.

SEARCH TOOL.

Thanks to our search tool, it’s now easier to search across hundreds of thousands of access points, networks and SSIDs without having to manually scroll through an extensive list! You can just enter the SSID you are looking for in the search bar the name, and you will find it within seconds.

ROGUE ACCESS POINTS DETECTION.

We have extended the usage of our newly-released feature to all customers and partners. The rogue access point detection system enables you to detect any unwanted access point broadcasting your same SSID name.

RESTORE STOCK FIRMWARE FROM CLOUD.

We understand that sometimes, people might want to restore the stock firmware of the device and stop using Tanaza. We don’t want to lock these people in with our firmware, that’s why we made it easier to restore the stock firmware of the access points in one click, from the cloud. This feature is already available for most of the compatible devices and will be extended to more devices in the future.

WALLED GARDEN NOW WORKS WITH BOTH IP AND DOMAIN.

Thanks to this feature, network administrators can set up (by domain or by IP) the list of websites that people can browse without authenticating to the WiFi network.

New captive portal features

We are allowing business locations to deploy high-quality, easily-accessible and secure WiFi for their guests.

CONTENT FILTERING.

Internet is an opportunity, but it might be also a threat to people and businesses. This is why during 2017 we started offering DNS-based web content filtering and malware protection on top of Tanaza WiFi networks.

FASTER CAPTIVE PORTAL.

Some changes have already been made: for example, our captive portal has been made faster thanks to last year’s 2.14 firmware upgrade. The captive portal can now handle thousands of devices connected simultaneously.

FLEXIBLE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

We have developed a new “terms and conditions” widget for our splash page editor that allows you to be compliant with your local privacy regulations, by asking people to give their consent to multiple terms and conditions text elements.

EMOJIS IN SSID NAMES.

In many countries, there are many SSID names available and it is very hard to make your network name stand out. This is why we have released this new feature, which allows you to add Emoji images to your SSID name to make it stand out among the other and thus, encourage more people to connect to your splash page.

SCALABLE WIFI ANALYTICS DASHBOARD.

Our WiFi Hotspot Analytics dashboard has been improved to answer the needs of our largest MSP partners, which are now managing thousands of devices and some hundreds of thousands of records in their WiFi client database. We were thrilled to see just how quickly our partners were able to grow in this market. Now, with the improvements made to our Dashboard, it can be a great aide as they scale their businesses.

FORM-BASED AUTHENTICATION.

We know that sometimes, the clients’ data provided by Facebook or other social networks is not enough for businesses to re-target customers with personalized direct marketing activities. For example, a supermarket might want to know more specific information from certain clients, such as the number of members in their family. To obtain this sort of personal information from customers, we created the powerful form-based authentication tool with customizable questions and fields.

CODE AND SOCIAL LOGIN.

In some locations, like coffee shops, there is the need to use social WiFi to gather clients’ data, while at the same time allowing only customers to connect. To make this model work, we created a feature that, first, requires customers to provide a WiFi access code (which is usually printed on their purchase receipt); then, allows them to log in either using their social accounts or by filling in a form, so that their data is collected in the WiFi analytics dashboard.

VOUCHER BASED AUTHENTICATION.

You can now export coupons and add your own coupon codes for voucher-based authentication. This means that you can export coupon codes and print them in your preferred format and layout so that you can customize coupon vouchers with your own brand. Also, you can copy and paste your custom code database into our system, so that you decide which is the coupon code used by customers when they are logging in.

Conclusion:

We are strongly focusing on our customers’ and partners’ needs;
We are enhancing our interface and improving usability, particularly for who is managing thousands of networks and has the need to scale up;
We are expanding internationally and opening new markets;
We’re enhancing our compatibility with top-notch high-performing devices, to keep pace with the latest technological advancements;
We are providing advanced tools for WiFi networks management via cloud;
We are expanding our feature set in the hotspot segment at a very rapid rate, to enable new business models and use cases.

We are aware that some of our customers have felt that their needs haven’t been met lately, but we have decided to focus primarily on that which benefited the majority instead of the few. We wish to continue to receive feedback and suggestions from all of our customers and we promise will to answer to your needs as quickly as possible and in the best way. On this note, we would like to encourage you to make use of our online community by contributing to it, suggesting new feature ideas and requesting the support of new devices, and getting your suggestions upvoted by other partners and customers.

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce a couple of new things. First, I will continue to make regular contributions to the Tanaza blog as a means of keeping you posted about our roadmap advancements and/or any future changes. Second, we will continue to host frequent webinars about new features and system updates to inform you in real-time about what happens here at Tanaza.

Last but not least, if you are ever in the area and would like to have a quick chat (or just a cup of coffee) … just drop us an email!

Hope you are as excited about the current and upcoming changes as we are.

It’s going to be a great year!

See you soon!

Sebastiano

How many wireless devices can you connect to one WiFi router?

by Marketing Team | Mar 8, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Wireless Hardware

How many wireless devices can you connect to one WiFi router?

With the fast development of the Internet of Things and the general increase of wireless devices on the market, people often face the situation where one router cannot handle the number of connected devices. In this article, we will speak about the number of wireless devices that you should connect to one router.

Tablets, smartphones, computers, smartwatch, smart lights, security cameras… these are examples of smart objects that can be connected the home router, have access to the internet, and even sometimes being controlled remotely. The fact is that the bandwidth is not limitless, and sooner, or later, the router won’t be able to manage all those devices. Internet speed problems might occur because of the overuse of the home router and the bandwidth overload. Moreover, because of the Joule effect, the home router might overheat and stop working if too many devices are connected. Last but not least, with too many wireless devices being simultaneously connected in a small area, interferences might occur and router’s performance would decrease.

The typical limit in the most common configuration is approximately 250 connected wireless devices, due to the IP addresses pool. Yet, in practice, the speed rating of access points give you an idea about the maximum devices that one router can handle. For example, a Wi-Fi router rated at 500 Mbps with 100 connected devices will only offer on average 5 Mbps to each device (this is true in theory because 500/100 = 5).

To solve this problem and maximise the performances of a Wi-Fi network, you should consider introducing a second router on your network infrastructure and other access points as well. This will help to distribute the network load and avoid problems of overload and overheat.

Tanaza allows you to set a maximum number of concurrent users to ensure a good Wi-Fi experience to your clients. You also have the possibility to limit the number of connected devices per Wi-Fi user. This feature is particularly useful for hotels dealing with a large number of clients.
Accordingly, the number of access points in your Wi-Fi infrastructure is another important factor: you can find more information about the number of access point you need for your Wi-Fi project in this article.

Discover Tanaza features

Watch our videos on YouTube for more info about Tanaza!

How many access points do you need for your WiFi hotspot

by Marketing Team | Mar 7, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, WiFi Networks

How many access points do you need for your WiFi hotspot

When deploying a Wi-Fi infrastructure in public locations, one of the key element to ensure a good user experience is the number and the type of access points to use.

Indeed, if the number of access points is too low compared to the number of Wi-Fi users, then problems of internet speed might occur because of the overuse of the wireless devices and the bandwidth overload. Usually, the maximum number of concurrent users is written on the manufacturer spreadsheet, but in practice it can vary according to the use of your network and the internet services you want to offer to your Wi-Fi users.

By using the Tanaza Access Point Selector, you can select the type of location and its size to estimate the maximum number of concurrent users. The number of concurrent users is the number of Wi-Fi users currently connected to the Wi-Fi network. It is calculated according to the type of location, its size, and the average time that a user spends on the internet. Count for example ten concurrent users for a large Café, or 140 for a large hotel.

Then, you should calculate the bandwidth needed by the user according to the usage of the network. For example, if you want your users to be able to chat, check their emails and use social media, consider a minimum of 560 kbit/s per user. If you want them to be also able to do VoIP calls, video calls, and video streaming, 3.28 Mbit/s is the estimated bandwidth per user. Your internet provider will be in charge to furnish you with the bandwidth required.

screencapture-success-tanaza-s-access-point-selector-1520418408607

Last but not least, select the characteristics of the access point such as the installation type, the radiation shape, the vendor and the main technology aspects (indoor, outdoor, AC, dual radio…). The Tanaza Access Point Selector will give you an estimation of the required units number, and the different models that fit the best your project.

/!\ Remember that the Tanaza Access Point Selector estimates the required bandwidth based on documentation and our experience on-site with our customers.

Try the Access Point Selector

Related articles:

The 4 best Wi-Fi analyzer apps to boost your network speed

Top 10 best affordable Wi-Fi 5 access points in 2017

How to choose the best access point for your restaurant’s WiFi network (part 1)

9 good reasons to choose the Social Login

by Marketing Team | Feb 14, 2018 | Classic Hotspot, Social WiFi, Wi-Fi marketing

9 good reasons to choose a social login for your Guest WiFi

Benefits and Reasons to Choose Social Login

Do you know all about Social Login?

We all agree that we find signing up for any registration process quite time-consuming and tiresome. It happens almost whenever we are trying to create a new account on websites. Sometimes these sign-up processes are way too complicated. We always try to look out for a fast and easy social login that is hassle-free.

With the advancement in technology, getting yourself sign-in on the internet has been improved. We are no stranger to social login while signing up on a website. Network managers need to create a seamless experience for the guest WiFi users during authentication. You need to look out for the ways where your customers are involved in fast login methods.

The Classic Hotspot platform features a built-in captive portal that allows Network Managers to personalize the way WiFi users log into the network. The platform provides you with various login options that allow you to gather different types of information regarding your customers. Apart from the basic login modes via email, phone number, and password, users can opt for social login. The social login will allow guest WiFi users to login into the WiFi network through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and more.

Discover why setting up a social login method for your network authentication is the most efficient way to gather real data and provide a smooth connection experience.

Faster registration

The main reason behind using social login to access public WiFi is that it is a comparatively faster process. It is also a simpler login process than other log-in options. With just a single click, users get themselves registered on to the network.

There are multiple login methods, but businesses find social login more engaging. Everyone has a social network account either on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter account on their devices. With social login, with just one click a user will be able to access the internet and the business will get accurate information about the WiFi user.

Social login methods

You can also make the users like your Facebook page or Check-in your venue by allowing the social login method on your Classic Hotspot Splash page. It is quite a convenient way to promote your business. With the usage of Classic Hotspot, these types of social actions will help your business improve visibility on the internet. To enable your social login, a Network Admin just has to click on the symbol of the login method of preference and then click “apply” to make the changes effective. In the Classic Hotspot platform, by default, the login methods are disabled. You will have to enable them into your splash page. The social login methods that Classic Hotspot allows are as follows:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google
Windows Live Login
Vkontakte Login

Data capture

The Classic Hotspot Platform allows you to customize the captive portal accordingly. It also allows you to capture the data of the WiFi users through the social login. Allowing social login on your captive portal is a good option to collect customer’s insights.

After logging into the WiFi network, Network Admins can collect data such as their name, surname, age, gender, email address, location, likes, interests, and more. For a business, this data can be used to drive marketing campaigns and target the right audience.

There is no doubt that Facebook is the most used social media platform in the World. It is the reason that most websites provide Facebook as the social login option for guest WiFi users. Not only it makes the social login easy, but it also helps improve the marketing strategy.

Easier registration

In the era of Information Technology, we all have created multiple accounts to access different websites. Remembering all of them is quite a confusing task, so we tend to forget our passwords most of the time. By giving your users an option for social login, they will choose their favorite social media platform to get themselves registered on your network.

The easier the registration process, the more chances are there that it will not result in a failed login. Social login makes the process of joining a network hassle-free. It is the most user-friendly WiFi authentication process if compared with other login methods. Also, if a user logins into your WiFi network through any social media platform, you will fetch and analyze the user data to run your statistics.

True data collected

Most of the time, when users have to give their data in exchange for internet access, they provide false information. But when you log in with a social media platform, it guarantees that you will get verified data such as their email.

It is of utmost importance to have a clean database that will accordingly help you create marketing campaigns. Many guest WiFi users have admitted that they fill in wrong or false personal information on the registration forms. By doing this, it will become challenging to validate the user database.

Getting quality users is essential for your business, and social login guarantees you a verified user data. The Classic Hotspot platform will let Network Admins get data of the users connected by which they will be able to get real-time data reports, also to control the number of concurrent users and bandwidth usage. Also, it highlights the most engaged guest WiFi users and shows how many Facebook likes/ Check-ins the business has received from WiFi users.

Greater personalized experience

Network Admins will be able to get real-time data reports by which they will personalize the client’s experience. By knowing who your users are, you will know what they like or not. More detailed and reliable data will allow you to tailor your business model and let you monitor the trends.

The relevant social data will also help measure how your marketing strategy will impact future demand. Social marketers think that they know what customer’s demands are. Still, it is important to get real-time data analysis to know it precisely. Classic Hotspot will allow you to create a personalized experience for each customer that will help drive marketing campaigns.

Easier login for mobile

It is essential to create a seamless experience for users while registering to your WiFi network via their smartphones. Today, almost every mobile device comes with large screen size, but sometimes people face difficulty filling out the registration forms.

Providing your users with the social login option will eliminate the chance of filling the registration form manually. It is a much advisable and easiest login process. With just one click, users will be able to connect to your WiFi networks.

Strengthen relationship and promote your events

It is a simple understanding that when users log in to WiFi through Facebook, they will see your Facebook page. It is an excellent chance to get attention to your business via social login.

You will be able to provide more information about the business to the users regarding your venue, your upcoming events, promotions, and discounts that you have on offer.

It is the most effective way to market and promote your business. Social media login will not only allow users to endorse your brand simply. It will also benefit when users can actively invite their friends to engage with your site and content.

Improve your marketing campaign

Social media allows you to know your customers even better. By gathering data from your clientele, businesses can get a powerful insight that will help improve marketing campaigns. WiFi is a great tool that will help your business grow and reach new heights. It helps improve the business strategies by analyzing the real-time data reports.

With the captive portal, users will provide their details with opt-in for marketing usage. Businesses will also get benefitted from the Classic Hotspot platform as lead generation through WiFi is extremely cost-effective. The public guest WiFi access will provide your business with a unique opportunity to boost your brand. In shopping malls, public WiFi is the best way to generate hundreds of contacts for a company.

Summary

Suppose your portal is asking for too much information during the WiFi authentication process. It may deter your customers from connecting to a free hotspot. Adding social login to your captive portal will give the users easy and fast access to your WiFi network.

If you are running a business, a shopping mall where you offer free WiFi to customers, providing them with social login is a good option. Classic Hotspot platform will provide you with various options to customize the splash page. It allows clients to access your public WiFi hotspots using their existing social media credentials.

Get yourself a free trial of the Classic Hotspot platform today to know how you can personalize the experience for your users. Know the real power of social media login by signing up for a trial today.

Start managing your WiFi hotspots with Classic Hostpot

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